Photographs by William Taufic.
Texas-native Alex Wallace-Currie was living in London when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2010. “To pass the time during six to eight hours on a drip, I started knitting,” says Alex. “Once I started losing my hair, I knit my first hat and stuck a big pom-pom on it. I thought I should make some sort of happiness out of what I was going through, and I realized I’d like to make pom-pom hats for other cancer patients. I started hosting parties to knit and make hats and donate them to cancer clinics. During chemo and radiotherapy, I organized events all over London. I spent my treatment helping others understand the disease.”
The longtime Junior Leaguer had always been crafty; she’d been knitting from the age of fourteen and often had a sketch pad in hand. “I was an unusual cancer patient,” adds Alex. “I took the bull by the horns. I had three young children at the time, and my youngest was two. They didn’t understand why I was bedridden. I had to put a lot of different hats on and a smile on my face and just go.”
The most impactful of those hats was the pom-pom hat, which led to The Pink Pom-Pom Project, now based in Fairfield, where Alex and her family settled three years ago. The charity, funded by profits from Alex’s Fairfield crafts store, A Little Square, provides craft therapy to cancer survivors and inner-city youth with a variety of programs. In Stitch & Bitch, cancer survivors and their family and friends knit or learn to knit, vent and have fun. Participants also can help create VOTY Quilts, which are donated to Volunteers of the Year at cancer support organizations. Commission Possible awards a local artist a commission to create a work of art or jewelry to raise awareness and funds for cancer or inner-city youth.
Her paid after-school classes fund identical free classes, such as Sewing Academy, for underprivileged kids. “Children are suffering,” says Alex. “The first program that gets cut in school is art. Kids need it to learn to think outside the box.” That’s exactly what Alex did, in that chemo chair four years ago, and “her little project has turned into a major support mechanism for cancer patients,” comments Cheryl Adkins, whose daughters have been involved with the Pink Pom-Pom Project through their Girl Scout troop. “She shares her passion and skills with the youth around her and inner-city youth. This is a wonderful program that enriches the lives of all touched by it.” »