Photo by Dan Wagner

By Justine Griffin for the Sarasota Herald-Tribune

SARASOTA — Shopping was a favorite pastime for Amber Lanelle Russ, Jim Russ’s daughter, and an activity the pair loved to do together.

They would cruise through the aisles of Walmart and Dollar General stores in Sarasota, Amber happy to just be with her father, who pushed her wheelchair for hours, even though they would rarely come home with lots of merchandise.

Amber Russ was in need of that chair all of her life. Though she could not talk or see very much because of conditions that included epilepsy, cortical blindness and scoliosis, she always smiled when she was out shopping in the community with her father.

“If you’ve ever shopped with a child in a wheelchair, you know you need bags that can hang easily from the back of the chair,” Russ said. “We always used the reusable grocery bags and, eventually, we started personalizing them.”

That began when Amber came home from Oak Park School in Sarasota with a new drawing or painting she had done in class. Russ would staple his daughter’s artwork to the tote bags as a way to brighten them up. One day, he stapled a picture of Amber’s beagle, Snoopy, to a bag.

“It seemed to brighten her day,” Russ said.

Amber passed away in 2011, just a month shy of her 21st birthday. Despite his grief, something told Russ to continue to make the bags he had used with his daughter.

“About four months after she died, I could feel her talking to me, saying, ‘Daddy, work on those bags,’ ” Russ said. “So for some odd reason, I did.”

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