Wear them well

Once you see one, you start noticing them everywhere around the South Shore.

The small, colorful bead bracelets adorned fans at football games on Thanksgiving Day. The bracelets can be seen on the wrists of discerning women (and yes, even a few men) at community events and fairs, and found in shops ranging from Humming Rock Gifts in Scituate to Esthetica Hair Salon in Quincy.

You see them on the street, too, silent symbols of a life being honored.

Sometimes a good deed takes on a life of its own, almost by chance, and that's what has happened with Mel's Bracelets.

Mel would be pleased.

These colorful pieces of jewelry are named in memory of Mel Simmons, a Rockland resident who died of breast cancer in 2005, and they're being sold -- for $15 apiece -- to raise money for cancer research. What began as a spontaneous tribute by friends has grown into an effort that has put tens of thousands of the bracelets in circulation in the region, and raised nearly $800,000 in the process.

Says Marie Bradley, a former co-worker, "It's become like a sisterhood. Someone sees you wearing one, and it's, 'Hey you got a Mel Bracelet! Me too!' "

Mel Simmons grew up as one of nine children in Hingham, and worked for 38 years as a flight attendant. She was a popular person at Delta Air Lines, where her co-workers say she was famous for her generosity and sense of humor. Frequent flyers knew her by name.

Simmons was diagnosed with breast cancer in 2000, and received treatment at Massachusetts General Hospital. She never walked in unnoticed, recalls her physician, Dr. Jerry Younger, clinical director of the Gillette Center for Breast Cancer at MGH, and "she never arrived without bringing cookies or something to give to everyone." Nor did she lose her sense of humor; on Halloween, Simmons showed up for her appointment wearing a tinsel wig with lights.

When Simmons was on sick leave from Delta, her co-workers often brought her souvenirs from other countries. One time, her friend Kathy Holden gave her 20 bracelets she had picked up in Istanbul. When Simmons went for her chemotherapy, she'd give them as gifts to the oncology nurses and other cancer patients.

After Simmons died in the summer of 2005, the colorful jewelry took on a deeper meaning. People who had received a bracelet from Simmons started wearing them in her honor. The bracelets -- beads of apple green, black, violet, periwinkle blue, lavender, and yellow, each decorated with bold stripes and geometric shapes -- began to pop up in Mel's old circles.

And that's when Bradley began to brainstorm. She put some bracelets in a basket, attached a sign that said "Mel's Bracelets . . . Please take one and leave a donation for the Breast Cancer Research Fund at MGH," and took it to a friend's house where everyone congregated regularly.

It didn't take long for that basket to be emptied.

"People wanted them" because they were from Mel, said Bradley.

A core group of friends were now on a mission: get more Mel's Bracelets and sell them to raise a few thousand dollars for cancer research. In October 2005, Holden and another longtime friend, Pauline Alighieri of Norwood, flew to Turkey and returned with 1,000 bracelets. They easily sold them all. At first, they sold the bracelets for $10, and some enthusiastic customers happily plunked down donations upwards of $100.

Simmons's friends from the airline now order the bracelets from the Turkish vendor. Every Thursday afternoon, piles of bracelets are sorted and bagged by volunteers in the community room of the Lincoln School Apartments in Hingham.

The community room becomes the center of operations between noon and 4 p.m. on Thursdays. On one recent afternoon, Alighieri was talking on her cellphone to another volunteer, who had gone to pick up another bin of bracelets so they could be sorted and packaged. Another woman sat at a table typing on a laptop, tracking orders. Meanwhile, five other volunteers -- Billy O'Connell of Cohasset, sisters Geri Dann and Denise McKenzie of Hanover, Curry College senior Laura Murphy, and Helen Warshauer of Quincy -- sat around a long table filled with bracelets, envelopes, and return mailing address labels.

"It's not a corporation, it's a grass-roots movement of people donating their time," said Alighieri, motioning to the bustling community room. "Mel was a grass-roots kind of gal. She would have been running this show. She would have loved this."

Fueled by coffee and cake, the five volunteers chatted as they sorted and bagged hundreds of bracelets. The volunteers are impressed by the sheer number of orders they're asked to fill, week after week.

"You see [Mel's Bracelets] everywhere," said Warshauer. "My husband comes home with reports. . . . We've seen people wearing them at the market, and on people getting their flu shots.

"My daughter sells them at her yoga group. . . .. They're really all over."

Each volunteer gets several sheets of paper listing names and addresses of people who ordered bracelets. They are packaged in cellophane along with a postcard that tells Mel's story. The addresses are written by hand to destinations all over the country and overseas. The bracelets have been sent to Hawaii, Canada, and even parts of Europe.

Approximately 1,500 bracelets are mailed every week, and an additional 1,000 are shipped to stores. The Rockland High School cheerleading squad recently helped out by bagging 15,000.

The Friends of Mel Foundation, created in July 2006 by Alighieri, recently made its first grant, donating more than $250,000 to Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center for cancer research and education.

Alighieri now serves as president of the Friends of Mel Foundation, the organization that oversees sales of the bracelets. "We've been on a whirlwind. . . . There's so many women and family members who deal with cancer," she said. "They feel powerless. This helps them.

"It's been woman power. I'm really excited about making it grow more and more and more. There's been so much good going on."

As for Mel, well, "She's probably laughing her head off up there," said Bradley. "She's still bringing people together."

To find a store that sells Mel's Bracelets, or to place an order, visit melsbracelets.org. Emily Sweeney can be reached at esweeney@globe.com.