On Saturday afternoon, Pampered Chef Advanced Director and Cranston resident, Beth Viveiros and members of her “Team Vivacious” joined forces to fill more than 250 blessing bags for Sturdy Memorial Hospital’s chemotherapy patients.

The event was part of a nationwide “Help Whip Cancer” effort by Pampered Chef during the month of October in honor of breast cancer awareness month. Viveiros, along with team members Suzy Chaves, Kristen Ricciardelli, Jamie Martin-Boucher, Katie Mancuso, Margie Foster-Stad, and Susan Dumuski spent several hours in an assembly line style, loading candy, coloring and puzzle books, snacks, socks, tissues, lotions, and other such token gifts, into Pampered Chef bags. “Each team member put out a message on social media to their family and friends, asking them to sponsor a bag,” said Viveiros. “Each bag cost $15, which included the cost of the bag plus the cost of supplies. We had a lot of supplies that were donated to us.”

According to Viveiros, in addition to the blessing bag event, many teams host fundraisers and donate the funds raised to the American Cancer Society.

“These are just members of my local team,” she said. “We are in several different states.”

In addition to members from Team Vivacious, there were also members from team SMILE and team Keys at Saturday’s blessing bag event.

“This is the first time I’m doing this, but I can tell you it’s going to end up being an annual event,” Viveiros said. “Our team has grown very large this year.”