Miles of Pillowcase Smiles

September: National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month

Each September Minnesota volunteers participate in the Miles of Pillowcase Smiles campaign. The organization's goal is 44,000 pillowcases - one for each child in treatment. Minnesota's goal is to make a mile of pillowcases - which is 2,112 pillowcases. Whether it is a single volunteer sewing in their house or several volunteers sewing at an organized event, each pillowcase is needed to reach the goal!

Here's how we've done in the past:

2010 - 1,272 pillowcases - Impressive for our first year!
2011 - 1,905 pillowcases - Almost made it!
2012 - 2,224 pillowcases - We passed a Mile!
2013 - 2,729 pillowcases - We passed 1 1/4th Mile!
2014 - 2,879 pillowcases - We keep exceeding expectations!

ConKerr Cancer started when Cindy Kerr’s son was diagnosed with cancer in 2002 and she began making pillowcases to brighten up his hospital room and to put a smile on his face. He loved it and so she began making pillowcases for other children on the Oncology Unit at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

Since then the pillowcase project, A Case for Smiles, has grown in amazing ways. We have provided over 240,000 pillowcases made by thousands of volunteers from across North America and in South Africa. School groups, sewing circles, church groups and fabric stores have all pitched in and are making pillowcases for the kids. An exciting new program has been to take fabric and sewing machines to hospitals and sew with the patients and their families.

ConKerr Cancer has been able to make amazing progress towards fulfilling our goal of making hospital stays as pleasant as possible for chronically ill children and their parents. Simultaneously the pillowcase project has fostered a spirit of community and volunteer service in communities across North America. Unfortunately the number of sick children never ends, and we must continue to expand our efforts to help brighten patients’ lives and raise awareness about childhood cancer.

ConKerr Cancer Minnesota

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Miles of Pillowcase Smiles

September: National Childhood Cancer Awareness Month