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Written by: Bryan Hunt - Breese Journal Editor

Shelly Kenow, LEFT, helps in the delivery of scores of "Galen Blankets" to St. Louis Children's Hospital. Photo courtesy Carol Huelsmann    A special anniversary — make that angelversary — is fast approaching. One that will touch many hearts.
    This Sunday, Sept. 24, marks the 10th year of the passing of Galen Huelsmann of Aviston.
    The son of Carol and Allan Huelsmann and brother to Anna, Galen died on Sept. 24, 2013, at age 16, after a 14-month battle with cancer.
    Galen was a sophomore at Central Community High School in Breese where he was an honorary member of the varsity football team.
    He was also a member of St. Francis Catholic Church in Aviston.
    Carol wants to thank the community for contributing to the "Galen Blankets" project and enabling it to continue for the past 10 years.
    For this unique project, people either donate fabric for Huelsmann to make the blankets, or donate money so she can purchase the materials for the blankets.
    "It's kind of my way of saying 'Thank you,'" she said.
Carol Huelsmann delivers a stack of "Galen Blankets" to the Cancer Care Specialists clinic in Breese.     Huelsmann said it's also her way of letting people know the project continues, "and the money that you did donate five years ago did get used for it."
    Blankets going near, far
    Huelsmann recalled a nurse practitioner with the Cancer Care Center in Breese reaching out to her, to bring them blankets.
    This was three or four years ago.
    Huelsmann said the patients and families who go to that clinic donate a lot to the project.
    On the morning of July 28, Huelsmann delivered 140 blankets to Children's Hospital in St. Louis.
    That put the "Galen Blankets" project at over 3,000 blankets delivered just to Children's Hospital, over the past 10 years, "and hundreds delivered locally."
    During Christmas week in 2022, Huelsmann drove around the community and delivered six blankets herself "to people that were sick."
    But during the COVID-19 pandemic, Children's Hospital was not accepting any blankets. You can imagine what happened to the production process.
    "My basement was filling up with blankets," Huelsmann said, "because families were spending time at home."
    Huelsmann needed to do something with the blankets, so she contacted SSM Health Cardinal Glennon Hospital in St. Louis, because they have a large facility for storing items.
    Huelsmann ended up taking 150 blankets to Cardinal Glennon during the pandemic, "because they had a place to store them, and let them sit for three days."
    The way she looks at it, Huelsmann said it didn't matter where the blankets went, but she needed to get them to the children who were hospitalized.
    Two blankets went out the last week of July, as she was contacted by two people through Facebook.

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