Sam’s Club Teamed Up in the “Smiles for Kids Volunteer Day of Service”

Tinley Park Sam’s Club and Calumet City Sam’s Club teamed up and participated in the “Smiles for Kids” Volunteer Day of Service on April 21, 2023. The Sam’s Club team members performed the arduous task of creating gift bags for children fighting cancer. The gift bags included coloring books, crayons and small toys that they organized, labeled and packed for young cancer patients at the Treasure Chest Foundation’s Orland Park warehouse. Sam’s Club came through when the stores donated new toys also. Their donation and volunteer efforts will bring smiles of comfort to thousands of children fighting cancer across the nation.

Sam’s Club is a membership-only warehouse chain with over 600 Sam's Club locations. Sam’s Club is committed to providing excellent products and services – in clubs, online, and through mobile devices – across the U.S. selling a variety of bulk grocery items, electronics and home goods.

Tinley Park Sam’s Club Manager Bradley Simpson said, “We are 100% believers in giving back to the community. To quote Helen R. Walton, the wife of the Founder of Walmart Sam Walton, it is not what you gather in life, it's what you scatter in life that tells the kind of life you have lived.” Sam’s Club Calumet City Manager Connor Ford said, “It is always good to take care of the children and pay it forward.”

POTCF Founder and CEO Colleen Kisel said, “The Treasure Chest Foundation is enjoying a new partnership with Sam’s Club. It is never easy to find volunteers, but the Sam’s Club delivered with a smile every step of the way.”

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 30th 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.