Covering heads with CARE
Nonprofit group has sewn 8,000-plus caps for cancer patients
By Elizabeth Sharp (Contact)
Jean Beisenstein, Heber Springs organizer of Care Caps, shows some of the caps volunteers have made for cancer patients. Each Care Cap has a tag sewn into it.
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LITTLE ROCK — For Jean Beisenstein, the best part of making Care Caps is the thanks she receives.
“I get beautiful notes that say, ‘I cannot believe you people in Arkansas are sitting down and sewing and giving us these hats free,’” she said. “They’re saying how down they are and how ‘up’ these hats make them feel.”
Beisenstein is a member of the Heber Springs branch of Care Caps, a nonprofit group that sews caps for cancer patients or anyone experiencing baldness due to health problems. Their next meeting is at 9:30 a.m. Tuesday at First Electric, and like every time they’ve met before, they’ll be making a difference in the lives of patients in Heber Springs and far beyond.
Mary Philips of Fairfield Bay started Care Caps two years ago when her own sister was battling liver cancer. When her sister started chemotherapy and knew that she would lose her hair, Philips said she began buying caps. But they were expensive - often between $25 and $35 - and were difficult to find, so Philips, a quilter, began to make them.
Eventually, Philips’ caps got so much attention that she would give her sister extras to hand out to other patients. But it wasn’t until a quilt retreat in Heber Springs that the program known as Care Caps started to take shape.
“One of my friends said, ‘We could get together once a month and we could all sew them,’” Philips said.
Today, Care Caps has 650 volunteers in Arkansas, Converse, La., and San Antonio. The first week of every month, Philips and her husband, Ingram, take 13 sewing machines in their little red trailer to different groups at churches and centers. Since their inception in May 2006, Philips said they’ve made at least 8,160 caps for patients all over the country.
Beisenstein, of Tumbling Shoals, was one of the first people Philips recruited for Care Caps. She said it was her loveof sewing as well as her own son’s bout with cancer that prompted her to help.
“There’s an awful lot of friends that we’ve lost [to cancer] or who have cancer rightnow,” Beisenstein said. “It’s just another way of giving back and feeling like you’re doing something for these people.”
Beisenstein said that the Heber Springs group meets one day every other month, and with the help of eight to 15 participants, usually sews about 50 caps - most of which go to patients at Baptist Health in Heber Springs.
“When we started, we decided we thought we’d like to see them go to the community first,” Beisenstein said.
But they don’t just go to hospitals in Arkansas; the caps travel to places like the Mayo Clinic, St. Jude and MD Anderson Cancer Center.
And while all the caps are free, Beisenstein and Philips both said the greatest reward are seeing how something that seems so small can make such a big difference.
“Occasionally, I will go some place, and I’ll see someone in one of our caps,” Philips said. “That is a real thrill to me.”
For more information on the Heber Springs branch of Care Caps, call Beisenstein at (501) 206-0350. Other information about Care Caps groups is available by calling Mary Philips at (501) 884-3046 or going to www.ccvols.org.
This article was published Sunday, May 11, 2008.
Three Rivers, Pages 118, 121 on 05/11/2008
