Arts & Entertainment
Hundreds of Butterflies Released in Hingham for Cancer Patients
A Wings of Hope event was held behind the Derby Street Shoppes on Thursday.
Makayla and Makenzie Pickett traveled all the way from Virginia to Hingham to release butterflies at Derby Street Shoppes on Thursday to bring peace to their grandfather who suffers from cancer.
The young Pickett sisters, ages 11 and 9, were just two of many children who opened up a box and let hundreds of butterflies fly into the sky by the Hidden Pond.
“I’m here to support my grandfather and to make other cancer patients feel better,” Makayla said.
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Her grandfather, Bill Campell and his wife Joan of Braintree routinely visit the Cancer Support Community in Norwell.
“Without the support group we wouldn’t be able to beat cancer,” Joan said. ”These butterflies bring us peace. It’s beautiful.”
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Tim Cummings, a licenses social worker and the Program Director of the Cancer Support Group organized the event with the Derby Street Shoppes to give emotional support to patients and their families.
“Cancer is like a train, it runs on two tracks, the medical track an the emotional one,” he said. “We try to provide that emotional support that people need when they get diagnosed and they go through cancer.”
Cummings said the butterflies are a symbol of hope.
“A butterfly comes from a caterpillar, so there is a difficult stage it goes through,” he said. “There is a lot of hope of making it through a difficult experience and then coming out on the other side and cancer qualifies as one of those events.”
Thursday’s event included face painting, a crafts’ tables and a thousand butterflies and was attended by hundreds of people from all over the South Shore.
Allison MacDonald, 27 of Duxbury and Lauren Lynn, 27 of Braintree were at the ceremony in memory of their close friend, Caroline Cronk who passes away after suffering a brain tumor.
Each said they were touched by the event.
“It was just great to celebrate the lives of so many that we miss,” MacDonald said.
The Cancer Support Community is located on Longwater Drive in Norwell.
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