Battle Ground knitting group gives more than 200 hats to those battling cancer

Cancer patient Lauren Bowles, left, and her boyfriend Jake Taylor wear hats they picked from hundreds brought to the Vancouver Cancer Center Thursday by a Battle Ground knitting club. (STEVEN LANE/The Columbian)

Lauren Bowles rummaged through the basket of colorful knit hats before finding one she liked.

After putting on the brown-and-pastel cap, she turned to her boyfriend. “Does it look good?,” she asked. He nodded.

Before she could thank the stranger who brought the gift, the stranger offered her own gratitude.

“You’re thanking me?,” asked Bowles, a 28-year-old Vancouver woman battling lung cancer.

The giver, Barb Sizemore of Amboy, was thankful because the hat — along with more than 200 others — symbolizes three months of labor and a yearlong vision to bring a simple act of kindness to those battling cancer.

Sizemore and a few friends from northern Clark County on Thursday hand-delivered 238 hats to cancer patients, including Bowles, at the Northwest Cancer Specialists clinic in east Vancouver.

“We’re trying to express a little love for people having a tough time in their lives,” Sizemore said.

They made their way through the clinic’s treatment center, handing out hats from baskets and plastic sacks and offering kind words to some of the dozens of patients receiving chemotherapy. They were met with expressions of delight.

Most of the excitement, though, came from the givers themselves. “It’s a real feeling of accomplishment just to see something you did move on,” said group member Kathleen Brown.

The impromptu Samaritan project started as a knitting and crocheting group that meets Thursday mornings at Blue Castle Coffee in Battle Ground. One of the members mentioned that a friend, Debbie Piesch of Battle Ground, had recently survived brain cancer. During her battle, she remembered receiving a hat at the east Vancouver clinic.

“All of a sudden, there was this beautiful hat on the counter,” her friend, Elaine Nibley, recounted. “She got the idea that if she ever got better, she wanted to give back.”

Over the next year, Piesch learned the nimble trade of weaving and looping and created some of the hats. So on Thursday, her wish came true, although she wasn’t there to see it. (Piesch was at home resting from complications from the cancer).

Group members took Piesch’s prompting as a way to give back. Most of the women have family or friends who’ve battled cancer and saw the need to reach out beyond their immediate circles.

Their project has gathered momentum over the last few months: A number of Battle Ground residents who found out about the women’s work have either joined the knitting club or donated hats.

Thursday’s giving surpassed any previous hat donation to the clinic, which sees 40 adult patients a day for treatment for a variety of cancers.

“Sometimes people can’t afford hats or don’t have time to shop for hats,” Toni Gress, Northwest Cancer Specialists’ office manager said of their importance. “We’ve never had this many come in at one time.”

Laura McVicker can be reached at 360-735-4516 or laura.mcvicker@columbian.com.