Tinley Park 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 children and teens diagnosed with cancer by providing a toy, gift or gift certificate in 49 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 22nd anniversary of remission from the disease earlier this year.

Unwrapped, brand new toys or gifts may be dropped off November 28th through December 23rd at these locations:

•Christa McAuliffe School, 8944 W 174th Street, Tinley Park

•Helen Keller School, 7846 W. 163rd Street, Tinley Park

•Hope Montessori, 17007 Oak Park Avenue, Tinley Park

•Dunkin Donuts, 7935 W. 171st Avenue, Tinley Park

•Hilda Walker Inter School, 19900 S. 80th Avenue, Tinley Park

•Tinley Park Chamber of Commerce, Junior Chamber, 17316 S. Oak Park Avenue

•John A. Bannes School, 16835 S. Odell Avenue, Tinley Park

•Kirby School District 140, 17830 S. 84th Avenue, Tinley Park

•KVH Industries, 8412 185th Street, Tinley Park

•Millennium Elementary School, 17830 S. 84th Avenue, Tinley Park

• Prairie View Middle School, 8500 175th Street, Tinley Park

•PTSIR, 17236 S. Harlem Avenue, Tinley Park

•Virgil I. Grissom Middle School, 17000 S. 80th Avenue, Tinley Park

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