Project Chemo Cap


My friend, Sharon Kay Willbrandt, died in 1993 of breast cancer.  She couldn’t get over the expenses associated with having cancer that are not covered by insurance such as baby-sitting, cabs to appointments, motels for out of town patients, wigs, prosthesis’ etc. Being a big woman’s advocate, she worried about the other women she met during treatment who were living paycheck to paycheck. 

My friend, Sharon Kay Willbrandt, died in 1993 of breast cancer.  She couldn’t get over the expenses associated with having cancer that are not covered by insurance such as baby-sitting, cabs to appointments, motels for out of town patients, wigs, prosthesis’ etc. Being a big woman’s advocate, she worried about the other women she met during treatment who were living paycheck to paycheck. 

Sharon’s husband, Lloyd, and daughters Kim and Terri, established a fund to help women with these expenses from the memorials given at the funeral. It’s such an inspiration to me to think what one person can do!  In the spring we put on a golf tournament and the winter a bowling tournament fundraiser. The fund has grown and is now administered by United Hospital in St. Paul. 

The fund has helped so many women that when United Hospital opened their new library they named it in honor of Sharon – the SKW Breast Center Resource Library. We’ve gotten wonderful letters from families the fund has helped. 

I found a pattern for knitted chemo caps and thought it was a great idea for a community service project. At best, they would be a fun way to cover a bald head – a real conversation piece. At the very least they would keep your head warm thru a cold Wisconsin night. I put up a display in the library and encourage women to take a cap free of charge.  I also printed up the instructions and encouraged those that knit and are able to help us out. The project has gone over very well and the caps go just as fast as we can knit them.

We’ve had a very good response with a lot of women helping. I even had a call from a woman in Iowa whose son saw the patterns and took one, sent it to her and asked her to help. The patterns can be found at: http://www.headhuggers.org/patterns/kpatt10.htm  I don’t know how to do “links” but you can outline the address, copy it and paste it into your address space. I would be very grateful if any of you knitters would like to join our project.

Feel free to email me if you have any questions: 

Shari Nelson at retire2lake@centurytel.net

Posted: Thu - April 19, 2007 at 09:17 PM      

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