Mothers Of Cancer Patients Donate Thousands Of Dollars In Gifts

PARK RIDGE, IL — Most people know the ancient Christmas story of the Three Magi. This year, Advocate Lutheran General Children's Hospital in Park Ridge became the scene for the new Christmas story of the Three Mothers. Said three mothers - from the distant lands of Bolingbrook, Waukegan and Arlington Heights - came bearing gifts for all the hospitals' young patients on Saturday, Dec. 21. There was no gold or frankincense or myrrh, but literal trucks full of toys and games for the kids that will be weathering the holidays from a hospital bed.

"We did this in a month," said Joanna Schroeder, the mother from Arlington Heights.

"Novermber 17 is when we first posted on Facebook, and it just kind of spread like wildfire from there," Dawn Dolcimascolo, the Waukegan mother, added.

"So now we have over 3,000 toys donated, along with over $2,200 in gift cards," Nicole Voelz, the mother from Bolingbrook, beamed.

The three mothers first became acquainted through a shared struggle - all three of them have very young sons fighting cancer.

"The main thing is we all have kids with acute lymphoblasitc leukemia... so we pretty much all met through the oncology clinic at the hospital," Dolcimascolo said.

Each mother said they had planned an individual toy drive for the hospital, and after connecting through their shared networks, they realized they could achieve more by combining their efforts. Achieve more they did.

By contacting a number of media outlets - including Patch - and leveraging their personal connections - including the company where Schroeder's husband works - they were able to collect and donate a small mountain of toys and games for the young hospital patients.

"We received a donation of the warehouse from JC Restoration in Rolling Meadows, where my husband works, along with a truck and somebody to drive the truck; that was all donated by the company, along with some people to help us out [sorting toys]," Schroeder said.

"We partnered with a lot of local businesses around our areas, so gyms and restaurants and apartment buildings that all decided to put down a drop box," Dolcimascolo said. "And they just started collecting toys and we started picking up toys and dropping them off at the warehouse."

"We also had some help from Athletico, and they had a bunch of boxes in I think about 25 of their locations, along with Walgreen's, about 65 different regional managers got together ... along with my school district, which is the Troy 30-C School District, we were able to get donations from them too," Voelz, who is a teacher by trade, added.

What's more, they got the North Maine Fire Protection District to join in.

"My wife read in the article [about the toy drive] in the Patch and sent it to me, so I made contact with [the mothers]," NMFPD Lieutenant Nick Rusz said, looking back at a fire engine full of toys and games. "Each guy actually did their own personal shopping. We had a lot of firemen put in toys from themselves, and we actually had a lot of people from the community come out and give us toys as well."

Besides toys and games, the mothers said the $2,200 in gift cards they accumulated were meant for the hospital's teenage patients - the ones too old for toys, but not so old that they don't want Christmas gifts.

"They're not going to be utilizing the toys," Schroeder said, "so we wanted to have something for them as well."

All these gifts were collected and sorted by hospital staff on Saturday morning, who said the hospital normally took in holiday donations even before the mothers began coordinating their efforts. The amount of toys dropped off on Saturday was a major windfall.

"Today is one of our two donation drop-off days, when we have the manpower to really take care of it... This will last us the entire year," Hospital Child Life Specialist Kevynne Chawla said.

After the gifts were dropped off and hospital staff started doing their work, the three mothers said they were relieved that their work was done. But not for long. The three have plans to make this effort an annual one, and they are already planning for next year.

"Our work's not done, because we are going to start planning for next year," Voelz said.

"Bigger, better," Schroeder added.

"Happier... It's going to be something bigger and better than what we're doing now," Dolcimascolo clarified.

Rusz said the NMFPD would be there too, hopefully to make the mothers's jobs next year just a little easier.

"I think North Maine would be very proud to be part of something like this annually," he said.