Orland Fire Protection District Holiday Toy Drives Benefitting Children with Cancer

Area residents and businesses have an opportunity to support children and teens fighting cancer by donating a new toy or gift during the Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest Foundation (P.O.T.C.F.) annual holiday toy drive.

The POTCF is a non-profit organization that provides comfort and distraction from painful procedures to 10,000 children and teens diagnosed with cancer by providing a toy, gift or gift certificate in 50 hospitals nationwide. Nowhere else in the nation does such a program exist. CEO 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 23rd anniversary of remission from the disease earlier this year.

Toys or gifts may be dropped off at three Orland Fire Department locations, December 2nd through December 23rd:

• Orland Fire District Protection Station 2
• 15100 S. 80th Avenue
  Orland Park, IL 60467
• Orland Fire District Protection Station 4
• 16515 S. 94th Avenue
  Orland Hills, IL 60477
• Orland Fire District Protection Station 5
• 8851 W. 143rd Street
  Orland Park, IL 60462

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