GENTRY — A group of Quest students in Sammie Cunningham's class at Gentry Middle School will be taking books they wrote and illustrated last year to the Washington Regional Cancer Support Home in Fayetteville later this month. The books are to be made available to children who must cope with the disease and disease treatments to help them know what to expect and that other children are thinking of them.
Whether it's a child diagnosed with cancer or a family member undergoing cancer treatments, the Gentry Quest students wanted to meet the needs of children who find themselves, in one way or another, affected by the disease.
The Cancer Support Home has lots of brochures and materials available to adults but not much for children affected by the disease, Cunningham explained. She said the books would be made available to children at the Support Home.
While none of the students have experienced cancer themselves, some have had family members who had the disease and at least one said she lost family members to cancer.
The student books talked about cancer in general and its treatments, and some talked about specific forms of cancer such as leukemia, breast cancer and lung cancer.
The seventh and eighth grade students wrote and illustrated the books over a 6-month period last school year, but it didn't work out to deliver the books to the Cancer Support Home until this year, Cunningham explained. She said the students worked on other projects during that same time frame because of the weightiness of their research and writing about cancer and cancer treatments.
She said her students worked on their books for a day or two and then worked on other things for a break from the sadness which accompanies studying cancer and the fact that many do die of the disease.
The students said they wanted to help other children know what to expect and look forward to delivering their books.
General News on 02/08/2017