Naugatuck student creates backpack meant for children battling cancer

A Naugatuck Elementary School student is trying to help others who are battling cancer.

The now 11-year-old student had fought the disease herself, at just 3 years old, and now she has invented a new device that is aimed at making a child's fight a little easier.

Kylie Simonds has created a backpack that is themed with Hello Kitty, lights up, but it is really a pediatric IV backpack that can easily be carried around.

“My inspiration is for all my friends that had cancer and have cancer they all inspired me to make this,” Simonds said.

The backpack would be used for children who are going through chemotherapy treatments.

Simonds thought of the idea that she thought of after being assigned to a school project.

“I had to think of an everyday problem so I thought of the everyday problem I used to have which was going to treatment and using the IV poles,” Simonds said.

She is now a sixth-grade student who fought her own battle for a full year after being diagnosed with a type of soft-tissue cancer.

She went through one month of radiation and 46 weeks of chemotherapy and said the worst part about it was wheeling around a large metal pole with an IV and all of its tubes attached to it.

“Even when I was in treatment, I thought this could be so much easier if I could think of something and I have backpacks for school and how light they are,” Simonds said. “Treatments would be so much easier for them and not as scary for them because just seeing the IV poles is scary.”

Eventually, Simonds said she wants the backpacks to be personalized for boys and girls, including different colors and themes.

She has raised $52,000 through a GoFundMe page.

“I'm hoping all the hospitals all over the country can have them and I want all the kids to be happy again,” she said.

The family's next step is making a working backpack to test out and they hope to do that in the next year.