Some 60 Chemo Comfort Bags ready for delivery in February held practical gifts like blankets, but also a whole lot of community love, said Liberty Lake organizer Kelsy McHenry. 

The totes given to cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy or radiation treatments are stuffed with other comfort items like hand cream, water bottles, crossword puzzles and warm, fuzzy socks.

"It's spreading the love," McHenry said. "There is no joy in cancer, but it's spreading the love.

"The goal is for the recipient to receive a bag with the gifts filled with love from their community. It's at no cost to them. It's just a nice surprise in a really dreary situation, honestly." 

McHenry, who sells merchandise for Thirty One Gifts, has a personal connection she said is her inspiration for the project. Her friend since childhood and now Liberty Lake neighbor, Laurie Denney, was diagnosed with breast cancer in May 2013, and over the course of treatments, underwent 20 rounds of chemo and seven and a half weeks of daily radiation. She had a bi-lateral mastectomy.

"To watch someone who is like your sister go through that, it hit home," McHenry said. "Everything changed in her life with a phone call on a Monday morning, and it affected everyone around her."

She gave Denney a Thirty One Gifts bag filled with a few items she could take to treatments. She later filled 12 bags to give to other cancer patients last year, but then decided to expand the project after she got thank you notes back on how much they were used. She also saw a newspaper clipping about a Thirty One Gifts representative in another state doing a similar project.

Thirty One Gifts is a direct-sales retailer of functional, fashionable totes, purses, home accessories and organization items that can be personalized, she said.

McHenry spread the word on Facebook and elsewhere that she planned to make Chemo Comfort Bags an ongoing project, including a focused drive around this time each year. That drew wide response from people who wanted to sponsor the $25 cost per bag, which is a Thirty One Gifts' eight-pocket utility tote.

"I'm using the money from donations to purchase the bags, and then I'm using my commission to fill them with product and purchase more bags, so I always have more on hand," McHenry said. "Many people have donated $25 for the totes. They were so willing to give because they have all been affected in one way or another by cancer."

McHenry separately bought some of the gifts to put into the bags, and many businesses have donated items to include as well. Donors include Itron, Liberty Lake's Madd Hatters that made 63 hand-made hats, Heaven Scent Bath & Body, State Bank Northwest, Oral Defense, Spokane Valley dentist Dr. Sue Weishaar, Inland Imaging and Rockwood.

Among sponsors of bags, a few people requested that one go to someone specifically, which McHenry arranged. Most of the $25 contributions were flat-out donations or given in remembrance of someone so that a card could be included. McHenry also has a consultant in her group that prepared 12 Chemo Care Bags separately, so about 75 total bags were set to go to people in this area, she said. 

The bags come in different colors and patterns, such as polka dots and florals, as well as ones for men in solid black and navy. McHenry also has prepared bags suitable for children that would hold coloring books, crayons and smaller hats. She recently ordered 10 hot pink totes as well.

Patients can use the bags to carry the different items they need while waiting during appointments or going through lengthy treatments, McHenry said. 

"They might bring books," she said. "With the bags, they're also bringing blankets, warm fuzzy socks. Others things in the bags are donated items like a water bottle, organic lip butter and specialized ice chip lozenges because people get really a dry mouth condition from chemo treatments or radiation. There is sugar-free gum, a chemo-care mouth wash, a sick sack from Inland Imaging, a pen, crossword puzzles, word searches, hand cream and hand sanitizer."

McHenry sought to include some gifts for the bags she thought would bring joy. Others are functional from what she learned people needed through the experience of her friend. 

She plans to have some bags prepared on a regular basis, in case someone calls and needs one. 

"I'll still take the sponsoring of totes, so I'll keep some bags on hand throughout the year ready to go for that next loved one who has been diagnosed," she said. "I've also told people if you have loved ones you know, let me know."

She planned to have her friend Laurie Denney help her deliver 63 bags before the end of February to different cancer treatment facilities around Spokane. "We're hoping we can go into the waiting room and personally deliver them."  

"I'm inspired to help others," she said. "Cancer is a scary word, and when someone is diagnosed, usually it's out of the blue. They don't know what to expect. They're thrown into all these diagnoses and treatments. This is a way maybe to help soften the blow."

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