WILTON — Twenty-seven colorful butterfly pillows created for cancer patients were donated Wednesday to the Martha B. Webber Breast Care Center at Franklin Memorial Hospital.

Girls and their mentors, members of Girl Talk at Academy Hill School, worked on the pillows after one program leader overcame her own battle with the disease.

Katie Hallman, school nurse and one of the founding leaders of the literature based mentoring program, was diagnosed on the first day of summer vacation last June, she said while preparing supper for the group at the school. A routine mammogram and a biopsy were followed by months of radiation and chemotherapy. She returned to work in January.

While a patient at a Lewiston hospital, a small heart-shaped pillow provided by the Dempsey Center for Cancer Hope & Healing helped relieve pressure on her arm after surgery.

Similar pillows are used for patients at the Farmington hospital, Hallman said of the project to create pillows for women here.

A butterfly design was chosen and members of the Maine Mountain Quilters donated cotton material. Each of the 27 girls in the program and their mentor cut out pillows that were later sewn and the girls stuffed them with hypoallergenic material.

“We liked doing something for someone else,” said Ryleigh Dwyer, a sixth-grader at the school. “It’s also fun to learn.”

Sue Dalrymple from the Farmington breast-care center later received the donations and told the girls they would help a lot of women to be more comfortable as they dealt with breast cancer, Pauline Rodrigue, volunteer coordinator for the Mt. Blue Regional School District, said.

“It’s fun to give back to our community,” added Liana Sweeney, a sixth-grader.

Each month the fifth- and sixth-grade students and mentors read a book. Most deal with a strong female protagonist, Rodrigue said of the seven-year-old program.

Mentors are either University of Maine at Farmington students or women from the community who are matched with students who have similar interests. They often have the same mentor for two years and grow close, she said.

The goal is to get kids reading and to give them exposure to people and ideas that they may not have encountered before. The mentoring program also helps with student aspirations.

There’s also a lot of fun.

“The best part for me is to hear them laugh,” Rodrigue said of the sheer fun she sees as the Girl Talk group meets once a month, reads and does an activity based on the book they’ve read.

There was no book behind the pillow activity. This one was based on Hallman’s experience, she said.

On this last monthly session for this school year, T-shirts sporting a small pink ribbon, a symbol of breast cancer awareness, were also ready to give to participants, Hallman said.

abryant@sunjournal.com

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