For some, it means presents under the Christmas tree. For others, it means being able to get a life-saving prescription.

“The cost of survivorship – not meaning to sound ungrateful, but they are extremely high,” said Julie Cowdin, a breast cancer survivor.

Another survivor, Cindy Sargent, came up with a way to help after being contacted by a house mother of a Kansas University fraternity. The fraternity wanted to adopt a family with a cancer survivor, and after Sargent pitched the idea at a meeting of her Young Women’s Cancer Survivor Group, she knew she’d have more than enough families willing to be adopted.

“I work for Office Max and we have stores all over Kansas City, Topeka, Wichita,” Sargent said. “I got five of those stores to adopt families as well, so in total, we got six families adopted out.”

Sargent said they weren’t out to raise thousands and thousands of dollars, just enough to take a little pressure off the families.

“Really it was just to help fill the gap,” Sargent said. “When you’re a breast cancer patient or survivor, it affects you emotionally, physically and financially.”

The donations ranged from toys to cash and gift cards. Sargent raised $2,000 – about $300 for each family.

Cowdin’s family is one of those that were adopted. The family received a few gifts for their daughter, Riley, and a check.

“We knew it wasn’t a ‘we’re going to come in and take care of all your problems’ kind of thing,” Cowdin said. “Just to catch a break. Just to be able to take a breath and know that for five minutes, you don’t have to worry about everything.”

Sargent wants to keep the help coming for survivors. “I would love to see it continue because breast cancer, cancer in general, is not a holiday disease. It’s continuous,” she said.

Sargent has looked into creating a foundation that would help families year-round. And while there are a lot of charities that support cancer, most of that money goes to research and not the patient or survivor, she said.

“There are things out there for us as well, but a lot of times the working poor don’t qualify and we fall through the cracks or there’s a big waiting list,” she said.

Sargent won’t be alone in her future fundraising efforts.

“I told (Cindy) that my hope and my goal is that next year, our family can adopt a family,” Cowdin said. “Hopefully we can collect donations through the year : and just encourage other people to become involved as well because it really means so much.”

Anyone else who would like to help can contact Sargent at sargcan@sbcglobal.com.