COPLEY, Ohio — A nonprofit that provides care bags filled with gifts and thoughtful messages for newly-diagnosed cancer patients is in need of volunteers.
Stage 4 Ministry, which operates out of St. Luke's Anglican Church in Copley, was created four years ago by former nurses Pam Harris and Sherry Petryszyn. Both women faced stage 4 cancer battles. Petrysyn died in 2021.
Harris said doctors discovered she had breast cancer after she was in a car accident and an MRI revealed the disease.
"Funny that you could say that a car accident was a good thing, but in my case, I thank God for that car accident," Harris said.
Harris told News 5 that Sherry and her wanted to give back to people who helped them, so they started making cards at a kitchen table for others facing cancer.
It blossomed into Stage 4 Ministry and a mission to fill and deliver handmade care bags. To date, nearly 2,000 of the bags have been handed out to cancer patients at hospitals.
"What we want people to know is that there's hope after a cancer diagnosis," Harris said. "I'm four years past a stage 4 diagnosis and you just work around it. You just live your life around it and there's hope."
The bags include handwritten tips to help patients along the journey, like drink hot liquids when cold, use a heated blanket and rest when feeling tired.
Volunteers— some who have faced cancer and others who have relatives with cancer— also write out encouraging notes.
Part of the note reads, "This journey can feel lonely and frightening, but you are not alone. We may have never met, but we are bonded through this common experience, and we hold you close to our hearts. We have been where you are."
All of the gifts that are placed in the care bags are paid for through donations. That includes blankets, socks, hats, water bottles, puzzle books, journals and other personal items.
Currently, the bags are delivered to nine Cleveland Clinic and Summa hospitals, but two other medical facilities have requested them.
Harris estimates there are about 80 volunteers who pack the bags or deliver them, but she said at least 10 more are needed to meet the increase in demand.
"We need volunteers to grow," Harris said.
Linda Pavlick, a breast cancer survivor, volunteered for Stage 4 Ministry after she received a bag as a patient. She said the bags show that people care and that you're not alone.
"We would love to have more people volunteer and help us so we can provide more bags," Pavlick said.
St. Luke's Pastor Dan Morgan said what the volunteers are doing is an act of mercy and healing.
"We just really want to give a quality gift to folks to encourage them, and enough letters from people here to say: Hang in there. Be of good courage. The Lord's got our back," Morgan said.
Like many of the volunteers, the mission is personal to delivery driver Larry Doyle. His family has also been touched by cancer.
"My brother, when he was 48-years-old, he got diagnosed with cancer and he lived to be 50-years-old, so my heart is in it too," Doyle said.
Dena Hunt, a social worker at Cleveland Clinic Akron General McDowell Cancer Center, sees the gratitude when patients receive the care bags.
"It just uplifts them, lets them know that there's people thinking of them, especially that first day of treatment," Hunt said. "Even if it's a really hard time, it does bring a smile to their faces."
While Harris hopes to find more help to expand the mission, she stressed that she's grateful to her current group of faithful volunteers who selflessly help others.
"It means a lot to me, but it means a lot to the rest of stage 4 too," Harris said.
Click here to find out more information on the nonprofit.
