Oak Lawn Mom Wants To Feed 560 Hospital Staff At Advocate Christ

OAK LAWN, IL — She’s chalked the walk, homeschooled her quarantined children, organized dozens of car parades, and now she’s going to feed 320 health care workers at Advocate Christ Medical Center. While the team treating COVID-19 patients are usually fed by a meal train, Ailene Barkhoff is raising money to bring lunch to the “forgotten departments” supporting the front line at the medical center. She would like to feed 240 more this Wednesday, May 20.

“We will be feeding some very important folks at Christ who have been sort of forgotten in the meal trains,” Barkhoff said. “The blood labs, the phlebotomists, the respiratory therapists, the X-ray techs, environmental services, housekeeping, and a long list of other departments that have been on the front lines.”

Barkhoff, a freelance court reporter, has been taking time off to assist her children with their e-Learning lessons from Hannum Elementary School. With time on her hands, Barkhoff has lined up Joe’s Big Backyard BBQ and Emilio’s Pizza in Burbank, both of whom have been trying to keep their restaurants going by offering curbside and carryout since restaurants since shutdown in March. She’s started a fundraiser on Facebook to raise additional money to feed the 240 ICU nurses and COVID-19 front line treating coronavirus patients, after finding out that these front line workers are not on Wednesday’s meal train schedule.

“If we can collect enough we can add the ICU and ER,” she said. “You’ll also be helping out local businesses.”

Donations are being accepted through Tuesday, May 19, at the “Lunch/Dinner for the Christ hospital COVID Staff” on Facebook. Barkhoff will post receipts of expenditures on Facebook. Anything left off will be donated to “Live Like Abby” for pediatric brain cancer research, named for Abby Wujcik, who died at age eight of a brain tumor in 2013.