Ryah Coates from Water Valley is hard at work creating dozens of handmade dolls to aid in cancer research since beating a stage four diagnosis at a young age.

“I've always wanted to do something for kids with cancer since I had cancer when I was a year and a half and we were going through a tough time,” explains 14-year-old Ryah. “We found similar dolls at a thrift store and we looked it up online and just thought we could do it and we had some spare felt, some spare string, and a whole bunch of buttons and just started making them.”

Ryah is selling each doll on Facebook Marketplace for $12. Every dollar raised is then put towards a donation to The Kids Cancer Care Foundation of Alberta and materials to make more dolls.

“I want to raise as much money as possible, I probably have made almost $200 so far.”

Each creation comes with a handwritten note and Ryah is sure to give each doll a unique name.

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She is also preparing a special group of dolls that she plans to take to the Stollery Children's Hospital in March.

“I’m making as many dolls as possible that I can give to other kids because they know their parents go through a hard time and themselves.”

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