Oak Forest Relay for Life Off to a Hot, Hot Start

Emotions run high as a small group gathers at a chili fest to kick off Relay For Life events.

Kathy Daley had a story to tell.   Standing before a small crowd at Oak Forest High School Jan. 12, Daley spoke of her parents and a good friend—all lost to cancer.  "Just over two years after losing my dad, my mom started to suffer from terrible back pains," Daley said. Tests led to a diagnosis of Stage 4 kidney cancer; she died six months later. "It's a strange feeling once both parents are gone," Daley said. "At 23 years old, I felt like an orphan. There is a loneliness that I cannot describe. Knowing that you will never have your father walk you down the aisle or have your mother there when you deliver your first child. It feels overwhelming." Stories like Daley's inspire a passion for fundraising that fuels Relay for Life events …

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Editor's Notebook

Where There's a Wig There's a Way: Volunteers Channel Clients' Strength to Rehab Wig Room

Wondering what happened to the wig room at the American Cancer Society? Wonder no more, readers. Wonder no more.

Want to feel like you can take on the entire planet? Accomplish even the most trying of challenges? Truly make a difference in the world around you? Psh, that's easy.   Volunteer. That's what I do. And it's what five others did, too, over the weekend. Guess what? I bet they felt as invincible as I did Saturday after leaving the freshly painted, newly organized and re-designed wig room at the American Cancer Society on Oak Park Avenue in Tinley Park. The project was made possible in part by all of YOU, our generous Patch readers. When I told you all about the prior, rather dreary condition of the wig room and voiced the need for donations, you rose to the occasion.  Roxane DeVos Tyssen donated two beautiful wicker storage towers. Though …

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Editor's Notebook

Looking For Wig-gle Room, the Cancer Society Asks for Help

We're pitching in to create a beautiful new space for American Cancer Society clients who stop by the organization to try on—and take home—wigs. Since there isn't a budget for this project, we need all the help we can get.

If you haven't had a reason to visit the American Cancer Society's Oak Park Avenue office, you may not know it's there. Well, it is. But you don't have to tell that to the hundreds of cancer patients who stop in the Tinley Park site each year hoping to gain a fresh perspective, a newfound confidence and of course, a show-stopping head of hair. A wig—seems simple, right? It's not. It means everything to patients who feel they're losing ... well, everything. It's their femininity. Their identity.  When a client leaves the cancer society with a new do, she radiates with light. I saw that light shine firsthand when I stopped in the office a few weeks ago to kick-start a redesign of the now rather gloomy wig room. A client had just been fitted …

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Carrie Frillman

7:06 pm on Saturday, January 28, 2012

Julie! You're awesome. I can't wait to share the before and after photos with everyone (keep an eye out on Monday). I e-mailed you, but I think a Target gift card would be great. I had such a fun day working on this room! There's no better way I could have spent my Saturday. Truly.   more ›

Oak Forest Relay for Life Named Top in Nation

In six years, the Oak Forest community has raised more than $524,000—$98,000 this year—and beat out nearly 5,000 other relay events for the American Cancer Society's Heart of the Relay award for engagement of survivors and caregivers.

Participants in Oak Forest's Relay for Life really know how to rally. Just ask the American Cancer Society, which awarded the Oak Forest version of the national event the Heart of the Relay Award for its engagement of caregivers and survivors on Tuesday, Aug. 23. Oak Forest's event beat out nearly 5,000 other relays across the nation. This year's event involved roughly 450 people on 38 teams and raising nearly $98,000, which the American Cancer Society representative called "an amazing feat for a town with a population of just over 28,000. "We have many other larger communities, neighboring communities, in fact, which don't raise the amount of money you all raised each year over the last six years," the representative said. "That's …

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