‘It healed my heart’: 1,000 survival kits prepared for breast cancer patients

By Kalé Searcy

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    OMAHA, Nebraska (KETV) — From the moment of diagnosis.

“This year alone, we will have over 2,000 breast cancer survivors in Nebraska or Western Iowa,” said Shawn McCarville, marketing and programming coordinator with Project Pink’d.

Through each step of the journey, Project Pink’d is there, providing comfort during a hard time.

“You’re not alone,” Anne Friedrichsen, a breast cancer survivor said.

Whether patients are undergoing chemotherapy, radiation or surgery, McCarville said they provide 1,000 Healing Hearts Kits designed with the patient in mind.

“Each has different things that were designed by survivors, for survivors. After they went through each one of those treatments, they thought of different things that they would have benefited from. And that’s how we created them,” she said

Each kit is picked up by volunteers and then hand-delivered across Nebraska and over the river in Iowa.

“The kit I received was a chemo kit and it contained things that I didn’t even know I needed at the time. Not only served the purpose of making me heal but making me feel better on the inside and it healed my heart. And helped me to know there was people just like me out there,” said Friedrichsen.

Now Friedrichsen is a breast cancer survivor and a volunteer through Project Pink’d.

“I saw the impact of the thousands and thousands of both men and women we served and helped and the organization just continues to grow,” she said.

Beyond the kits, the organization has programs to help cover bills during treatment and even provide a home-cooked meal on Thanksgiving.

“Holds your hand beginning to end,” Friedrichsen said.

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