Even as she faced a downhill battle from Ewing’s sarcoma, the late Kennedy Parker was thinking about how to help children with cancer and their families.
Parker got busy in 2019 and did a teddy bear drive for the children she saw in hospital hallways, sometimes all by themselves. Her rare type of cancer affects children, teens and young adults.
Her heart also went out to the nurses and doctors on the frontlines at the start of the pandemic, who were treating patients like herself, so she did a fundraiser for them, too.
Parker was remembered at a recent blanket making day for children with cancer at the Cancer Support Center in Homewood. The event was organized by Project Kennedy, the nonprofit she started and that her mother, Darnesha Evans, and friends and supporters carry on.
“She was giving back because she understood what they were going through,” said Evans, who lives in Homewood. “When she was doing it, it gave her life.
“I knew she was in a space of happiness,” said Evans, a community outreach coordinator at the Cancer Support Center, a job she said came easy to her because of her experience with her daughter.
The blanket day attracted dozens of volunteers to make blankets and launch the nonprofit’s nationwide Dare the World to Kare! initiative, which strives to distribute 250 blankets to chilren across the United States in honor of Parker and her upcoming 30th birthday.
The fluffy, soft and colorful blankets are meant to comfort children in the throes of cancer and also feeling cold during treatment.
Organizers, including eight board members who participated, supplied the blanket material and participants helped cut strips around the edges of each. The blankets were neatly packed up and taken to Nix-Nax in Homewood for finishing touches, before they are distributed to children with cancer.
“It just makes me feel like I’m doing something good,” said Ruth Chambers, who lives in Oak Forest and knows Evans through the sorority Sigma Gamma Rho. “The people who have cancer can’t move around like we do, it’s just to show them we care.”
Demetria Howard, who was there with Chambers and sorority sister Rene Williams of Chicago, said she wanted to show her support.
“Several of my family members passed from cancer,” said Howard, explaining her sister survived a first occurrence but the cancer recurred. “I most definitely wanted to come to be the support someone else might need.”
Anissa Cousins, of Chicago, was also busy making blankets. She became close friends with Parker when the two looked into joining the sorority.
“We met and all of a sudden we were inseparable,” Cousins said.
That was because of Parker’s winning personality, she said.
“She definitely had a positive outlook on life,” said Cousins. “She always treated life like it was a bright new day.
“Darnesha, her mom, couldn’t keep her in the house … she was resilient,” said Cousins.
Kennedy also helped her friend strengthen her faith.
“She made me understand … be thankful for the time you have,” Cousins said. “Appreciate what you have.”
Parker, with the help of her mom, also wrote a book with pictures, “Cancer picked the Wrong Chick,” and spoke at churches, schools, radio stations and television networks about her story and the importance of cancer awareness.
Evans said the cancer was a grueling experience for her daughter, affecting her jaw initially and at one point leaving it swollen when she was only 21. She died at 24.
“People actually made fun of her out in public,” said Evans. “It got hard for her.”
The nonprofit has helped Evans heal and remember her daughter’s strength.
“I know she’s with me,” said Evans. “I’m doing something she wanted.
“I don’t have time to cry,” she said.
Janice Neumann is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.