Braun Educational Center is Helping Children Fighting Cancer

The Braun Educational Center in Oak Forest is giving back to children fighting cancer. The 5th-grade students hand-crafted key chains, bracelets and necklaces with Perler Beads and sold the gifts to students and staff for $1 to $5. After the last key chain was bought, the students collected $125 and a bin full of toys for children and teens to benefit the Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest Foundation (POTCF). The 5th graders purchased toys with the money they raised and volunteered to label the donated toys at the Treasure Chest Foundation warehouse.

Braun Educational Center utilizes positive behavior supports, individualized instruction, and a variety of therapeutic services to teach students the academic and social coping skills necessary to become productive members of society.

Braun 5th grade student Emily said, “I thought kids need a chance to get brand new toys to help when they are sick.”

POTCF Founder and CEO Colleen Kisel was grateful for their help. “We are thrilled to have the support of the 5th graders at Braun Educational Center. The gifts will provide smiles of joy to young cancer patients,” said Ms. Kisel.

The POTCF is a unique organization whose services impact more than 15,700 young cancer patients in 65 cancer treatment centers in 21 states across the nation and in the District of Columbia. Nowhere else in the nation does such a program exist. Colleen Kisel founded the organization in 1996 after her then seven-year-old son Martin had been diagnosed with leukemia in 1993. Ms. Kisel discovered that giving her son a toy after each procedure provided a calming distraction from his pain, noting that when children are diagnosed with cancer their world soon becomes filled with doctors, nurses, chemotherapy drugs, surgeries and seemingly endless painful procedures. Martin celebrated his 29th anniversary of remission from the disease in March of this year.

If you would like further information about the Treasure Chest Foundation, please contact Colleen Kisel at 1-708-687-TOYS (8697) or visit the Foundation’s website at www.treasurechest.org.