Strangers cook meals, do chores for Calgary mom battling breast cancer

Shelley Lamer can't believe how many people are showing up at her home in Riverbend, S.E., to clean her house, or provide a meal for her family. People she's never even met.

"It's just the most comforting, warm thing somebody could do for you; a stranger bringing you food," says Lamer.

 The 39-year-old mother of three young girls was diagnosed with Stage 3 breast cancer on July 16. She was told it was in her lymph nodes and the tumour was too large to remove. That means she will have to undergo six rounds of chemotherapy before surgery followed by radiation therapy.

"The appointments are just unending for what I'm doing. It's so nice to feed the kids veggies and dip and fruit as opposed to trying to scramble and figure out what we're going to do," says Lamer. "People have brought an entire cooler full of snacks. People have brought a dinner plus a dinner to freeze so that we always have something healthy and we've always got something to eat." 

Meal Train

All of the donations started after she met a Good Samaritan named Brooke Szczepanski.

Lamer had been told she could no longer breast feed her three-month-old baby, Beatrice, because of the chemo, so she began searching for breast milk donors.Szczepanski couldn't provide milk, but still wanted to help. 

So Szczepanski circulated Lamer's story on social media. She also turned to an online tool called Meal Train, where strangers could sign up to provide meals, do housework for Lamer.

"The initial response was crazy. I think we had three weeks filled within the first two days. And people were offering to do child care, grocery shop and breast milk on top of it," says Szczepanski. 

Giving more than they know

Lamer has started writing thank-you notes because most of the time the meals are just left at the doorstep, or these acts of kindness are done when she isn't home. 

"It gets me emotional and I like to give them a hug and tell them that I can't wait until I am not sick anymore in a year from now and I can do that for people," says Lamer. "I don't think they know how much it means to me ... It keeps me from feeling down or alone going through cancer treatment."

Szczepanski hopes to keep the meal train going until Lamer gets stronger.