Welcome to the HemOnc Holiday Elves 11th Annual (2009-2010) Stockings for Chemotherapy Patients Project Celebrating 10 Years of Giving

We are University of Michigan Employee Volunteers & Friends

Sponsored by the

Division of Hematology/Oncology,

Department of Internal Medicine,

at the University of Michigan

Ann Arbor, MI

Going through chemotherapy can be tough enough. Imagine going through chemotherapy in the midst of a bustling holiday season when everyone around you is shopping and having fun. Michigan winters can be dreary enough without adding chemotherapy to the mix.

Our Mission is to brighten the holiday season for our chemotherapy patients.

For the past 10 years, our group of very busy volunteers (the Holiday Elves) have provided over 4,800 hand-sewn stockings & mittens to our chemotherapy patients as they are seated in the Infusion Centers. (In our first year, we made & filled 75 stockings - for the past two years we've filled 700 each year!)

We have seen years disappear from the faces of patients opening their stockings or mittens and pulling out item after item with a grin. We have received hundreds of thank you notes and e-mails telling us how meaningful this gesture is. Some patients have come to look forward to this surprise every year. One patient I met was ready to give up on treatment and on that day, he received his stocking. Something about that small gesture brought this man hope - and he and his wife made a point of finding me and making sure I understood what it had meant to them. He gave us a donation and both his wife (& ex-wife) made beautiful stockings that they donated to our project in the years following.

One recent e-mail said: "I wish you could have seen the expression on his face!! He just lit up! He's been talking all day about that stocking and telling everyone how wonderful it is there! The treatments have been an ordeal, to say the least - but your small gesture of caring and friendship has meant as much to both of us as all the care, support and understanding shown by everyone at U of M Medical Center (and that's saying a lot coming from 2 staunch Notre Dame Fans!!!!) Please pass on our thanks to everyone involved and tell them to keep up the wonderful work!! It really brightens the lives of patients and families at a very low point in their lives."

If you would like to help us achieve our goal in bringing a smile to more faces this year, please consider providing a donation of time, talent and/or money. Our stockings go to Canton Infusion, Cancer Center Infusion areas, the Ann Arbor VA and to our inpatient units on 8A/8B.

How We Began: In 1999 a young co-worker, Lisa, was diagnosed with cancer, so we came up with the idea of making stockings as a distraction from treatment. We filled the stockings with toys and gave them to our pediatric chemotherapy patients. The following year (at Lisa's urging) we also included our adult patients. The patient and family reaction was so positive that we continued, each year sewing, filling and distributing more than the last. And...Lisa is still in remission.

The recipients of this delight are patients at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center and the Ann Arbor Veteran’s Administration.

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