The Story of Barbara

This is the story about how "Carla Can Sing" came to be, and it is a neat story, about a very special girl named Barbara Gail Parry.

Barbara was the youngest of five sisters, who grew up on a farm in Southwestern Ontario. Barb loved animals, especially horses! Barb also loved swimming and music.  She was a very good piano player.

When Barb was about 18 years old she started to feel sick.   She went for lots of tests and  they found out she had non-Hodgkin's lymphoma.

That was the very same year that she was supposed to start University, but she had to wait a bit for treatment before she was able to enrolled in the School of Music at the University of Windsor. While she was going to school she also had lots of treatments - she had chemo, and radiation and even a bone marrow transplant. When she was having all these treatments, she realized how much music meant to her. She listened to Bruce Springsteen, John Denver, Paul Simon, Tom Waits and others, and it really helped her to get through it all.

As part of her Drama-in-Education class, at the University, Barbara developed "Carla the Cancer Cutie". While continuing her music education, and spending time in the hospital, Barb realized how lucky she was that she was old enough to understand the seemingly scary things kids go through when they have cancer and all the different kinds of treatments. So she kept on working on Carla, which she was now calling "Carla Can Sing", and the story and music that goes with it. Barbara contacted various professionals within the University of Windsor's School of Music, and the Uni-Com Senior Resource Centre also at the University, in order to form a team to assist in the completion and distribution of her work.

Her "University team", as well as other individuals outlined in her living will form what is now called the "Barbara Parry Paediatric Oncology Association" or BPPOA for short. It took a long time but through a lot of hard work and assistance from many different people and organizations, such as the University of Windsor, an Ontario Trillium Grant, fundraising from private groups and individuals, the final "Carla Can Sing" kit is now available to children with cancer.

Barbara Gail Parry
creator of
Carla Can Sing