Westchester Community Church Benefits Children with Cancer

In the spirit of giving, the parishioners of Westchester Community Church in Westchester are helping children and teens fighting cancer. The church recently sponsored a toy and gift card drive to benefit the Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest Foundation (POTCF), 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 card in 49 hospitals across 17 states nationwide. When the last gift card came in, the parishioners donated toys, $55 and $255 in gift cards.

Westchester Community Church parishioner Marge Nelson said, “We have been hosting this toy drive for five years. We want to help the children and having a family member with cancer is an added incentive to help.”

Treasure Chest Foundation CEO and Founder Colleen Kisel expressed her profound gratitude for the generous support shown by the Westchester parishioners. “The Treasure Chest Foundation is especially grateful to Westchester Community Church for their enormous donation of toys, gifts and gift cards,” said an appreciative Ms. Kisel. “It is wonderful to see the giving members of this church come together to help little ones whose lives have become filled with doctors, nurses, surgeries, pills, chemotherapy, radiation and mostly painful, painful procedures.”

The not-for-profit Treasure Chest Foundation now supports more than 9,300 children and teens each month who are diagnosed with cancer by providing a toy or gift card 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. Colleen discovered that giving her son a toy after each procedure provided a calming distraction from his pain. Martin is on course to celebrate his 23rd anniversary of remission from the disease later this year.

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.