Students at four District #210 Lincoln-Way high schools are participating in a program designed to make their local community a better environment in which to live, work and learn. T.E.A.M. Asset, an acronym for Teaching Everyone Assets Matter, provides an outlet for both children and adults who strive to improve their community.
The T.E.A.M. Asset program’s framework identifies the basic assets that all young people need to grow up healthy, caring and responsible, and then emphasizes each asset in a unified campaign for a better community.
The Lincoln-Way students recently joined forces with the park districts from Frankfort Square, Mokena, New Lenox, Manhattan and Frankfort, the Mackay Education Center, New Lenox School District 122, Manhattan School District 114, Frankfort School District 157-C, St. Paul’s United Church of Christ and attendees at the Lincoln-Way East Family Fun Fair and collected more than 7,000 toys, $365 in gift cards and $675 in donated funds for the Pediatric Oncology Treasure Chest Foundation (POTCF). 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 card in 44 hospitals nationwide.
Liz Gerske, Lincoln-Way East T.E.A.M. Asset Coordinator, said, “Ten years ago I had an opportunity to organize a community service project for T.E.A.M. Asset and decided to collect for the Treasure Chest Foundation. I felt it would be a great fit for our school children and the Lincoln-Way community—such a worthwhile cause and an opportunity for kids to help kids. Now, more than 10 years later, we are still going strong and loving it. The more smiles we can put on the faces of these children as they fight cancer, the better.”
Treasure Chest Foundation Founder and CEO Colleen Kisel said, “I want all of the groups who worked so hard to know what a tremendous impact this toy drive will have. Their compassion and generosity will help put smiles on the faces of children and teens who are struggling with the adversity of battling childhood cancer.”
The POTCF is a unique organization whose services impact more than 8,500 young cancer patients each month. Nowhere else in the nation does such a program exist. Ms. Kisel founded the organization in 1996 after her then seven-year-old son Martin had been diagnosed with leukemia in 1993. She 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 recently celebrated his 20th anniversary of remission from the disease.
