Hempfield family packs 'chemo comfort' tote bags for adult cancer patients

A Hempfield family’s loss has turned into gain for hundreds of cancer patients in Westmoreland County.

On Sunday, Dave Carr and his sons, Eli and Grant, gathered with family and friends at the University of Pittsburgh at Greensburg to assemble special tote bags for adult cancer patients.

The Chemo Comfort Care Totes Project, now in its third year, will distribute the 415 totes to patients at the Arnold Palmer Cancer Centers in East Huntingdon, Unity and North Huntingdon, and AHN Hempfield, which has a 55,000-square-foot cancer unit opening in early January.

“It’s pretty incredible how much support we’ve received, and I envision it growing even more in the future,” Carr, 54, said. “I just know that it’s Carolyn living on.”

Carr’s wife, Carolyn, died of breast cancer in 2018 at age 46.

Wendover Middle School seventh-grade teacher Holly Hallman learned about the loss last year when she had Eli in her home room. She was inspired to expand a project she had started with her husband, Craig, an assistant men’s basketball coach at Pitt-Greensburg, in 2017.

The Hallmans inaugurated the project over winter break that year and enlisted the help of the men’s basketball team, assembling 56 totes in the process. That number grew to 150 totes in the second year.

This year, the project nearly tripled in size as more organizations, sports teams and individuals donated money and items.

“We had an overwhelming response,” Holly Hallman said.

On Sunday, supporters gathered at the Chambers Hall gymnasium to assemble the totes in assembly-line fashion. One line was for women’s totes, and one line was for men’s totes.

Items included water bottles, blankets, socks, notebooks, baseball caps, markers, pens and pencils, note cards and note pads. Accompanying each tote was a personal note and an engraved wooden tag.

The totes will be distributed in the coming weeks, Hallman said.