Orland Park Uncle Builds Treasure Chest and Orland Park Woman Paints

The Treasure Chest Foundation received one large Treasure Chest thanks to the tireless work of Orland Park resident Mike Casper.

Mike donated the Treasure Chest in memory of his nephew, Jacob Abraham. Some of you will remember Jacob, a childhood cancer patient whose treatment for rhabdomyosarcoma (cancer) did not go well. Jacob succumbed to the disease in August of 2016 and would have been nine years old this October.

Orland Park resident Lorelei Jones generously donated her artistic skills to skillfully paint the newly constructed Treasure Chest to match the St. John Children’s Hospital (SIU) theme. The St. John Children’s Hospital will receive the new replacement Treasure Chest in May 2022. The Treasure Chest will be hand-delivered by Jacob’s mom Meghan Abraham, and Jacob’s grandmother, Mary Ann Casper.

The Treasure Chest Foundation is especially grateful to Mike Casper, Meghan Abraham, Mary Ann Casper and Lorelei Jones.

The POTCF is a unique organization whose services impact more than 15,300 young cancer patients in 64 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 28th anniversary of remission from the disease in March of 2021.

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.

Pictured: Mike Casper (top left) is joined at the Treasure Chest Foundation’s warehouse by his sister, Jacob’s mom Meghan Abraham, and his mother, Mary Ann Casper, as they proudly display Mike’s newly built Treasure Chest. Lorelei Jones (bottom right) of Orland Park proudly displays the newly painted, dinosaur-themed Treasure Chest at her home in Orland Park. This Treasure Chest is headed to St. John Children’s Hospital (SIU) in Springfield, IL and will soon be filled with toys and gifts for young cancer patients.