Clovis woman donates gift bags to moms at Valley hospitals in memory of her daughter

FRESNO, Calif. (KFSN) -- This beautiful baby girl named Rose blessed her family with sweet smiles and snuggles for two precious months.

Now her memory is inspiring an incredible act of kindness and compassion.

"She would be 8 years old, and she had open heart surgery on Mother's Day in 2014. And it was a very challenging day, a very challenging time, open heart surgery on a baby is definitely something that any mother does not expect to have," Catherine Tourner said.

Tourner remembers the fear she felt - and then the relief when her five-day-old daughter made it safely through surgery.

While Tourner's focus was fully on her newborn, someone else was thinking of her.

"I was gifted a gift bag for Mother's Day, and I didn't even realize it was Mother's Day to be completely honest and I felt so much joy and I don't even know who donated it," Tourner said.

Last year, Tourner decided to pay it forward by launching her first Mother's Day mission. She began with a goal of donating 25 gift bags but received so much support that it quickly blossomed into more than 500 for moms and nurses at Valley Children's Hospital. This year, her network of friends, family, customers of her beauty business and Senescence Cosmetics itself once again stepped up to help, filling 550 bags.

Tourner, her husband, and their three boys delivered 400 bags for mothers at Valley Children's and 100 for the dedicated nurses.

Another 50 went to women with babies in the NICU and PICU at Community Regional Medical Center.

She also shipped 20 special boxes to moms across the country caring for children with cancer and other life-altering illnesses.

"We can't take away their pain, we can't make their child better, but if we can show them some love and some kindness, it's huge, it's huge," Tourner said.

With baby Rose always in her heart, Tourner plans to continue this mission for many years to come.

"We're going to touch more lives, and really just spread the love and kindness as far and broad as we can," Tourner said.

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