Cancer patients benefit from a mother’s legacy

Her late mother so relished a gift bag given to her during her battle with lung cancer that Leigh Stolarz was inspired to create and donate gift bags to other cancer patients in her mother’s memory. Stolarz and her children recently assembled and donated those goodie bags to Debbie Burkhardt, director of Radiation Oncology, to be distributed to cancer patients at Monongahela Valley Hospital, where her mother, Barbara J. Wentzel Zimmerman, received treatment. Stolarz created a Facebook page called “Giving Back: The Butterfly Affect — Chemo Care,” to solicit donations for the bags. Her mother’s friends and caregivers gave the majority of the gifts. Shown, from left, are Stolarz with her son Jaxon, 1, Burkhardt, and, front, Arabella, 3, and Iliana, 5, holding up two of the chemo care packs.