A warm blanket and some well-wishes from local students look to once again bring some comfort local cancer patients.

For those handing them out last week at the Olympic Medical Cancer Center in Sequim, the gifting was particularly personal.

Each year for the past four years, as part of the “Subaru Loves to Care” initiative, Koenig Subaru partners with the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society (LLS) to provide blankets and messages of hope to cancer patients and their families.

“It’s good to get out in the community and give back,” Bill Koenig of Koenig Subaru said last week, before meeting with patients at the cancer center.

About two-and-a-half years ago, Koenig lost his father to leukemia.

Along with his wife Leigh Ann Koenig, a first grade teacher at Greywolf Elementary whose students helped draw pictures and messages such as “I hope you get well soon,” Koenig was joined last week by Rob Edwards. The Port Angeles educator was representing his daughter Anne, a survivor of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma.

Anne Edwards, then 8, was diagnosed in 2013 and spent six months in treatment at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Rob Edwards said his daughter wanted to be in Sequim to present blankets but was attending the national FBLA (Future Business Leaders of America) conference in San Antonio, Texas, at the time, and that she planned to visit another time.

Edwards, Koenig and cancer center director Dean Putt last week met with Stanley Chapple, a patient diagnosed with multiple myeloma in December 2016.

As it turns out, Chapple and Koenig had met before. Some years ago, Chapple purchased a 1975 Corvette convertible from Koenig at a Subaru fundraiser. Chapple said the car is still in the family, having sold it to his son-in-law.

Following a long conversation between the two men linked by a vintage car, Edwards noted, “That was more than a blanket exchange.”