Source: KPNX
When we hear the word “cancer,” we all fear. We know someone who’s died after the very tough battle and those who survived the journey, like Elizabeth Cluff.
When she received news that she had cancer, Cluff knew she could and would beat it, and as a mother of three very young children, she had to beat it.
She did, and she’s been free of cancer since. But that is not where her cancer journey ended. Once she healed both physically and emotionally, she decided to begin Impact One Breast Cancer Foundation.
With Impact One, Cluff sends “hope in a box” to women who are starting or going through their own journeys. She knows firsthand the necessities that one goes through when living through sessions of chemotherapy.
“We try to help patients with necessary things through their stages,” she said. “Wigs, bras and gauze are just some of the things that are needed, but we send encouraging thoughts with this as well.”
The items that are in the box are mostly caps for when they lose their hair due to chemo. They also send prosthetics for those who go though a mastectomy, T-shirts with encouraging messages and sometimes pendants with positive reinforcement to help out when patients are feeling their worst due to the effects of radiation.
These boxes aren’t just sent within the United States. Cluff has found some cancer patients in Mexico, and has begun sending them help and information in Spanish.
“When I was going through chemo, I didn’t know that many of these things are free,” she said. “I could have used the help.”
“Hope in a box” is filled with mostly new items from companies that no longer produce the specific model, or from women who have gone through the process and have unused materials. Each box costs just over $12 to ship, but everything inside is free to the recipient.