CLUB HUB: Mrs. Claus Club brings Christmas magic all year round
Carol Manown, clinical coordinator of outpatient oncology at Monongahela Valley Hospital Regional Cancer Center, organizes some of the gifts inside the center donated by the nonprofit Mrs. Claus Club, on Wednesday. Some of the gifts included a refrigerator for drinks and snacks for patients undergoing cancer treatment.
Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard
The Mrs. Claus Club delivered gifts to the Monongahela Valley Hospital Regional Cancer Center including puzzles, snacks and drinks for patients undergoing cancer treatment. The nonprofit Mrs. Claus Club provides comfort baskets and gifts to those battling cancer.
Rebecca Devereaux|Herald-Standard
Melissa Marion (right), director of fund development at Monongahela Valley Hospital, chats with Virginia Vasko (center), a leader in the Mrs. Claus Club, an organization that supports individuals battling cancer. Vasko and the nonprofit club donated gifts to Monongahela Valley Hospital Regional Cancer Center on Wednesday.
Editor’s note: Club Hub is a monthly series highlighting the community service and social clubs operating in the Mon Valley Herald-Standard readership area.
On a cold March afternoon, members of the Bentleyville Mrs. Claus Club, Virginia Vasko and Chris Marinack, arrive at Monongahela Valley Hospital bearing gifts.
The board members deliver a refrigerator, freezer puzzle table and puzzles as well as Gatorade and various packages of snacks to the hospital’s Charles L. & Rose Sweeney-Melenyzer Pavilion and Regional Cancer Center.
“This feels like Christmas,” exclaims Debbie Burkhart, director of radiation oncology.
The items will benefit patients who undergo treatment at the center.
“Sometimes, our patients may be nauseous and may need something to drink so having a refrigerator specifically for the patients spares them having to buy a drink in the (vending) machine or at the snack shop,” Burkhart said.
Vasko said when her father battled bladder cancer, the center he was treated at had a puzzle table.
“He enjoyed it so,” Vasko said. “It helped him pass the time. Chris and I know what it takes to get your family through this.”
This is not the first time the Mrs. Claus Club members have made such a visit to the hospital.
“They’ve been friends of ours for years,” Burkhart said.
The Mrs. Claus Club has been spreading gifts and a hope since 2006. The nonprofit club provides comfort baskets for those who are battling cancer.
Each holiday season, Jeanne Taylor Graham would dress up in a Mrs. Claus suit in her hometown of Emlenton in Venango County.
When she died of breast cancer, her granddaughter, Tiki Kahle sought a way to honor her mother’s memory. That was the inspiration for Kahle to form the Mrs. Claus Club of Knox.
Within a year, she recruited her college sorority sister, Vasco, to form the Mrs. Claus Club of Bentleyville.
“When she was organizing the second year of the Mrs. Claus Club, Tiki asked me to help her,” Vasko said. “I thought this is what I want to do in my mother’s memory.”
Vasko did so shortly after her mother died of cancer.
“My mother was teaching on a Friday and on Monday she was diagnosed,” Vasko said. “My mother was diagnosed and I lost her within 7 weeks.”
When Vasko returned from Kahle’s event, she gathered her girlfriends, all of whom had lost a family member to cancer.
“Watching the pillars of your family going through this horrible illness is devastating,” Vasko said.
The Bentleyville club holds its major fundraiser the second weekend in November. They solicitor all year long for that one night, Vasko said. all money raised at that fundraiser pays for the comfort baskets.
“The comfort baskets include lotions, mouthwashes, etc. — all of the things needed when going through chemo,” Vasko said. “A lot of the churches’ ladies groups provide quilts and blankets, and we also put in gift cards for gas or pharmacy or food. If they need a wig, we give them a gift voucher for a wig from Studio 7 in Washington.
The Bentleyville Club “has grown leaps and bounds,” Vasko said.
“We started in a small room in Ellsworth and had 90 people come to our first (fundraising) event and now we sell out within four days of announcing the date in a venue holding 350,” Vasko said.
The Mrs. Claus Club of Bentleyville receives 75 to 100 requests a year, and they have never failed to fill a request. Vasko credits its donors for making that happen.
“This is a whole team, it encompasses the whole community,” Vasko said. “We get the Bentworth Leo Club and now the alumni involved. We are sure this is going to continue because we bring the youth in and show them the people who need the support.”
This year, the Mrs. Claus Club donated a white Christmas tree, decorated with handmade ornaments, to the Charles L. and Rose Sweeney Melenyzer Pavilion and Cancer Center. Each ornament had a different ribbon designating a different form of cancer. The tree was placed in the Charles L. and Rose Sweeney Melenyzer Pavilion and Cancer Center.
They also donated warm, comfortable socks and a grocery card with each pair of socks.
In addition to the comfort baskets, the Club provides a couple of “pick me ups” for patients, such as a thermal mug with lottery tickets.
“If we learn there is child this time of year who has been diagnosed, we take one or two of the items donated, auction them and take the money from that auction and give it to their family,” Vasko said.