Guardian Angels Work for Sick Kids and Cancer Patients

Guardian Angels Guardian Angels with Caring Stitches members, Florence Chow, Barb Janik and Debbie Hay arrived at the Thunder Bay Regional Health Sciences Centre to distribute hand-crafted blankets to the children on the pediatric ward.

While her father underwent cancer treatment or talked with specialists, Barb Janik stitched. Sitting in waiting rooms, she embroidered and quilted teddy bear clowns doing circus tricks.It kept her busy while she accompanied her dad from his Kapuskasing home to Sudbury, where he was treated for the cancer that would take his life. The Thunder Bay corrections officer had been plying needles — knitting, embroidering, crochet and quilting — since she was 12.

At about the same time, a co-worker at Thunder Bay Jail, Florence Chow, read an article about a national group that knits blankets for people in need. A handful of jail staff adept with sewing needles decided to apply the idea in Thunder Bay. They call themselves the Guardian Angels with Caring Stitches. The teddy bear clown blanket Janik was making when her dad died was among the first batch the group donated to sick kids at Thunder Bay Regional in 2004. She never met him, but a boy with cancer received that special blanket.

“It was important that it went to a child suffering from that beast we call cancer,” said Janik. “Somebody got it who needed it.”

Janik, Chow and Deb Hay were back at the pediatric ward Wednesday with their third load of blankets in every colour of the rainbow — 36 in all.
Four senior correctional officers and a jail cook make up the group. A previous superintendent let them hold their monthly stitch sessions in an old administration building on jail property. Jail staff donated much of the yarn. “We have a lot of support from the people at the institution,” said Chow.

Janik isn’t the only one whose life was touched by cancer. When a fellow employee was battling the disease, staff each created a quilt square. The pieces were sewn together and given to the co-worker as a quilt. “It is therapeutic for us,” Chow said about the monthly get-togethers. “It’s a good support group, and we are able to reinforce the good we are doing. “And it’s very satisfying,” she said. “More than anything, we’ve had mothers crying, come up and hug us, send us e-mails,” said Chow. “It’s great to see we have that sort of impact.”

Depending on the size and type of yarn, a blanket can take anywhere from 20 to 40 hours to complete. They knit in their spare time, and Janik noted stitching between rounds at the jail is a good way to stay alert when they “hit the wall” at 4 a.m.

“For me, it just relieves the stress of the job,” said Hay, a correctional officer. “You get to focus on something that’s positive.”

It’s mostly children and people battling cancer who receive the blankets. Among other projects, the Guardian Angels have donated the one-of-a-kind blankets to Tamarack House, where out-of-town cancer patients stay while receiving care in Thunder Bay. They have knitted pink scarves to raise money for breast cancer research and they sew chemo turbans that the Canadian Cancer Society distributes to Northern Ontario cancer patients. They don’t have much money to donate, said Chow, but they have time, energy and a talent that can bring warmth, both literally and emotionally, to people who need it.

One thing the group is short of is yarn. Anyone who has scrap yarn can contact the group at guardian_angels737@hotmail.com, or leave a message by calling 767-7583.

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