Tinley Park Sam’s Club Community Grant to Benefit Kids with Cancer

The Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest Foundation (POTCF) of Orland Park was overjoyed recently to receive an enormous donation of $1,000 from the Tinley Park Sam’s Club Community Grant program.

Sam’s Club Community Grant program supports and invests in communities through local giving, encouraging volunteerism and through programs to strengthen community cohesion. Tinley Park Sam’s Club Manager Bradley Simpson said, “We are 100% believers on giving back to the community.” Sam’s Club employee Helen R. Walton chimed in saying, “It’s not what God gathers it’s what you scatter, that tells what kind of life you have lived.”

Treasure Chest Foundation CEO and Founder Colleen Kisel said, “We feel so honored to have the support of the Sam’s Club Community Grant program and the Sam’s Club employees. 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 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.