Ryan's Case for Smiles - formerly ConKerr Cancer

Our History-Ryan's Case for Smiles 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. 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. Â Not only do the children learn to sew, but so do many of the moms and dads! Case for Smiles 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.

As volunteers we sew, wash and iron pillowcases. We also have volunteers that pick up pillowcases from drop off sites and deliver pillowcases to local hospitals in Maine. We are willing to teach others how to sew or we also need help with washing, ironing and transportation.