RichLee Vans in Chicago Ridge Rolls in with Toys and Gift Cards

The employees of RichLee Vans in Chicago Ridge recently helped children and teens fighting cancer when they hosted a holiday toy and gift card drive to benefit the Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest Foundation. The employees and one employee’s church, Good Shepard Missionary Church collected a vanload of toys and $305 in gift cards.

RichLee Vans is a busing company dedicated entirely to Special Needs busing and operates more than 2,200 school buses in and around the Chicago land area.

RichLee Vans employee Paraprofessional Christine Dirkans said, “I enjoy doing this toy drive. Anything to help soothe the children’s pain.”

POTCF Founder and CEO Colleen Kisel is especially grateful to Rich Lee Vans for their toy drive this holiday season for children and teens fighting cancer. “Thanks to the overwhelming success of their event winter will be happier for the brave children and teens who benefit from our services across the nation,” said an appreciative Ms. Kisel.

The POTCF is a unique organization whose services impact more than 16,100 young cancer patients in 66 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.