Palos Park Couple Sponsor Opening of 53rd and 54th Treasure Chest

The Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest Foundation (POTCF) of Orland Park was overjoyed recently to receive an enormous gift from Foundation Board Member Herb Walker and wife Janice from Palos Park. The couple recently sponsored the openings of the 53rd and 54th Treasure Chests at Toledo Children’s Hospital in Toledo, OH and University of Missouri Women and Children’s Hospital in Columbia, MO. This donation will benefit more than 300 children and teens in the Toledo and Columbia areas fighting cancer.

"I joined the Treasure Chest Foundation Board to help raise money to support the ongoing operations and to add new treatment centers for providing toys to young cancer patients," explains Herb. " Now that Toledo Children’s Hospital in Toledo, Ohio and University of Missouri Women and Children’s Hospital in Columbia, Missouri are open, I look forward to sponsoring another treatment center and Program next year."

Treasure Chest Foundation CEO and Founder Colleen Kisel said, “We feel so blessed and honored to have the support of the Walker family. Their donation will help support thousands of children and teens who endure years and years of unending cancer treatments by rewarding the little ones with a toy, gift or gift card after every procedure.”

The POTCF is a unique organization whose services impact more than 13,300 young cancer patients enduring 20,000 clinic visits each month in 19 states across the nation. 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 25th anniversary of remission from the disease in March.

Photo one caption: Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest Foundation Board Member Herb Walker and wife Janice proudly stand in front of the 54th Treasure Chest at the University of Missouri Women and Children’s Hospital in Columbia, Missouri minutes before the ribbon-cutting ceremony.

Photo two caption: The smile on the face of this first-time visitor to the new Treasure Chest at the Missouri Women and Children’s Hospital in Columbia, Missouri was as big as ever.