Room full of Butler ‘elves’ pack 1,500 stockings
BUTLER TWP — The five-hour chemotherapy sessions April Dickey sat through during her second bout with cancer were made a little better thanks to some cards and puzzles she received from a group of Christmas elves with Hang Tough.
After completing treatment in 2019, Dickey went on to become one of those elves and on Monday, Nov. 17, she scurried around the Butler Township Volunteer Fire District hall putting cards and games into stockings, just like others did for her years ago.
She said she wants other people to have some joys in their cancer treatment, which is the mission of the nonprofit she was helping, Hang Tough.
“It's one of those things I never forget,” Dickey said of getting a stocking in 2019. “There's activities in there, all kinds of puzzle books, so it was just stuff to do and helped pass the time for the actual situation.”
While a few dozen volunteers started packing stockings on Saturday, Hang Tough is a year-round project for its founder, Sharon Schneider, who takes the year to gather donations to pack for more than a thousand cancer patients annually.
And this year will see the most stockings the project has ever packed, with Hang Tough preparing 1,546 stockings for Butler County. They will be distributed to cancer patients in facilities like the Benbrook Medical Center, Concordia Lutheran Ministries and Independence Health System’s Crossroads Campus.
The yearlong project culminates in an even busier week of work, but it isn’t troublesome for Schneider — the mission is what drives her.
“It's all about giving from your heart and you can see how busy the hands are,” Schneider said. “You have to use your resources to the best of your advantage for other people and that's what we do.”
Schneider started Hang Tough years ago, packing stockings in her house to give to cancer patients in the Butler area. She said it became a certified nonprofit three years ago.
“In the beginning, these were all in her living room, in her dining room, on her table, every room had this until we moved into the fire hall,” said Jane Wolfe, a longtime volunteer.
The name is itself a message to the people the nonprofit aims to help, Schneider said.
“We came up with the name just because they are all fighting the battle of their life and we want them to hang tough through that battle,” Schneider said. “Let them know that the community loves them and supports them and it's just to put a smile on their face for the season.”
Schneider and her daughter, Kelsey Schneider, start making a push for donations around September and place Hang Tough bins in businesses around the county where people can contribute gifts. Additionally, the nonprofit seeks donations of stockings, many of which are made by hand by crafting groups, like the Woodland Quilters.
The nonprofit asks that people donate gifts that could fit into a stocking — items like nonperishable foods and cleaning and hygiene supplies can be given, but Hang Tough also aims to provide items like cards and games to cancer patients.
Each stocking contains $20 to $25 worth of items. Sharon Schneider said the way the packing works, in which volunteers move through the fire hall loading stockings from bins, ensures that every stocking is unique and has the personal touch of one of those volunteers.
“Everybody makes their own. They all have a unique style,” Sharon Schneider said. “No two stockings are the same.”
In the decade or so Sharon Schneider has been distributing stockings to cancer patients, she has given out 12,000 stockings. She said she gets a count from each cancer treatment office in Butler County to see how many people will need stockings each November so she can pack just enough. She is even going to help the Rotary Club of Sharon pack about 300 stockings for cancer patients in Mercer County.
“The biggest one right now is out at Crossroads and that's a UPMC Hillman Center and they need over 600 right now,” Sharon Schneider said. “We have two hours in Mercer to turn 200 stockings.”
Sharon Schneider described herself and her helpers as “professional North Pole critters,” because of how quickly they are able to pack nearly 2,000 stockings. She said in addition to the volunteers who were at the fire hall Monday, a Scout troop helped over the weekend, as well as students from Butler Senior High School. Agencies like NexTier and Accurate Solutions sent employees to help pack Monday, which also both hosted Hang Tough Bins and made donations to the cause.
Sharon Schneider said the fellowship and collaboration seen among her fellow elves extends to the patients who receive the stockings, who can make connections with one another through the gifts they get. Sharon Schneider said the games and activities included in the stockings are just as important as the food and supplies, because they help create a connection.
“We give them stuff like the cards and puzzle books and they get to know the people sitting beside them. They play cards or get their puzzles out,” she said. “We give them lottery tickets and they'll scratch them and say, 'Did you win?'”
Hang Tough used to make even more of a personal impact on patients, when Sharon Schneider and her other volunteers were able to deliver the stockings to the hospitals personally. It ended once the COVID-19 pandemic hit, but she said the personal delivery was special to the patients the nonprofit visited.
“We had a whole team that dressed as elves and I came dressed as Mrs. Claus before COVID,” Sharon Schneider said.
Several of the people who came to pack also remember the impact the stockings made on them.
Latashia Franklin, of Butler, is one of the people affected by Hang Tough who returned on Monday to pay it forward with the nonprofit. She said the stocking her dad received made an impact on him and his treatment, which is a memory she carried with her until signing up to help out this year.
“My father benefited from the program when he was in cancer treatment at Crossroads,” Franklin said. “This is an awesome program. I was reading about it and wanted to come help.”
