JAY- Carley Pomerleau’s legacy of helping make the hospital stays of critically ill or dying children easier for them and their families continues with help of family, friends, students and staff at Jay schools.

Carley died nearly a year ago on Sept. 17, at age 15, due to complications of lifelong illness but, not before the first donation of gifts for sick children and their siblings could be delivered to Maine Medical Center in Portland.

Carley collected soft blankets, portable DVD players, books, sweat pants, games, audio books and other items with help from the community and beyond to give to sick children and their siblings through her “Gifts from the Heart” program.

On Friday, students and staff at Jay high and middle schools donated a $1 to wear a hat, some just donating the money, to benefit Pomerleau’s project.

They were each given a sticker with a photo of Carley in a hat at the beach to put on. Some put them on their clothing, others on their hats or other possessions.

“I was one of her friends,” sophomore, Elizabeth LeBlanc said, as she stuck the sticker on her shirt. “This means a lot to me. (Carley) really wanted to help other people who were sick like she was.”

Senior Joe Gagnon, a member of the high school chapter of the National Honor Society sponsoring Hat Day, said Carley did a lot.

“She organized a group to help others and this will help continue the program,” Gagnon said.

Another senior Griffin Couture, Carley’s second cousin, said he knows the proceeds will help the family continue the program.

“I know (Carley’s death) was a big loss for them and they really need all the help they can get,” Couture said.

Already this year, a second delivery of gifts has been made to Portland and a first delivery to Central Maine Medical Center in Lewiston was made in August, Dianna Pomerleau, Carley’s mother, said.

She plans to connect with Franklin Memorial Hospital in Farmington to make a delivery there in February, around Valentine’s Day, a day that Carley first received her portable lung to help her exhale.

She also was supposed to make her first delivery on that day another year but was in the hospital instead.

On Saturday, the second annual Gifts from the Heart Walkathon, though it’s the first time in Jay, will be held at 10 a.m. at Taglienti Field on the track behind Jay High School.

People will walk 15 laps, one lap for each of Pomerleau’s 15 years.

A day before her 15th birthday in August 2005, a group of people who helped collect the gifts gathered at her home for the first delivery.

She was so sick by then she had to be wheeled out in her bed to the dining room and nurses came to her to collect the gifts.

She had lived with myopathy, which caused weak muscles and spurred scoliosis or curvature of the spine. She also developed a form muscular dystrophy.

Carley said back then, “I’d like to thank everyone for their participation and for all the hours you put into this. Thank you very, very much… I hope it will make the time less tedious and boring (for children in the hospital).”