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What is the outcome of ArtCare?

ArtCare raises community awareness of the positive impact of participating in the arts during times of illness, stress and grief that results in a pro-active commitment on the part of the community to support arts-in-healthcare programs in hospice and cancer care settings.

Bandanas of Hope: A Community ArtCare Project

During her chemotherapy treatments in 2005, choosing a Bandana to wear became an important part of Cheryl Stirling’s daily life. When her hair grew back, she was reluctant to simply throw them out. Her bandanas were a symbol of her survivorship!

Cheryl created a Community ArtCare project by inviting other survivors to decorate a Bandana of Hope with her at the Canadian Cancer Society’s 2006 Relay for Life. The bandanas were mounted on 12x12” canvases. At the 2006 event, 120 survivors wrote messages of hope for themselves and participated in a performance using the completed bandanas to spell the word “Hope”. Cheryl Stirling was the recipient of the B.C. Artists in Healthcare Society 2005 Outstanding Volunteer of the Year Award for this project.

At Port Coquitlam’s Harvest Fest 2006, B.C. Artists in Healthcare Society volunteers invited the public to add their own words of hope, support and encouragement to the original bandanas.

For the past two years cancer survivors at the Relay for Life have had the opportunity to read these messages of support from their community in an annual installation of the Bandanas of Hope.

In 2007, the Bandanas of Hope story travelled to Nashville, Tennessee where participants at the Society for Arts in Healthcare International Conference created their own Bandanas of Hope. Young cancer survivor Leah Callen donated bandanas for this project and she had inscribed her well-worn bandana with the words, “Never, never give up”. Her message prompted a heartfelt response from one participant who asked us to return the bandana to Leah in hope that she would read his response the following year. She did!

Leah Callen continues to volunteer her time and energy to supporting B.C. Artists in Healthcare Society projects and was the recipient of the B.C. Artists in Healthcare Society’s 2007 Outstanding Volunteer of the Year Award.

“Initiatives such as these, by bringing art to bare on the fundamental social issues that affect the well-being of our residents, are in keeping with our goal to create a vibrant, healthy, complete community…”   --  Susan Hull, Arts and Culture Coordinator, City of Port Coquitlam, 2006