Suburban woman collects ornaments for sick children
Lyzzi Elliott doesn't have a typical Christmas tree, but rather something she calls a Memory Tree.
It looks like a traditional Christmas tree decked in ornaments, but the decorations hold special meaning: They were annual gifts from Santa during her childhood that reflect her interests at those times.
So each ornament not only creates a festive air for the current holiday season, it also conjures vivid, happy memories for the 24-year-old Elmhurst woman.
She and her family members reminisced as they hung their ornaments each year.
"It was a good time to reconnect," she said. "It's simple but it's special to me."
The tradition also has held meaning because the former Buffalo Grove resident and 2003 Stevenson High School graduate spent many Christmases in hospitals, first battling liver cancer and then coping with long-term side effects of those treatments. The ornaments gave her hope.
Now Elliott hopes to share that holiday magic with at least 1,500 ailing children at area hospitals.
She's delivered ornaments to about a dozen hospitalized children each year for the past several, but is expanding her efforts because of an offer from an Oak Brook client, who wishes to remain anonymous, who will donate a miniature tree for each ornament if she collects 1,500.
"It's worth it when you see the kids smile. It's worth everything," Elliott says. "It feels great to give them hope. It makes you thankful for everything you have."
Elliott is collecting ornaments through Sunday at Lucky Strike Lanes at 100 Yorktown Center in Lombard and at 322 E. Illinois St. in Chicago. The venues, where she works as event sales manager, are open from 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. weekends.
As of Thursday, she'd amassed about 1,100 decorations. Some are more suitable for adults so she plans to deliver those to seniors in nursing homes in Des Plaines and Chicago.
"I'm all in tears these last two weeks. People lose their jobs and they're still sending these ornaments," she said. "Some people donated one. Some donated 10 or 15."
Elliott plans to finish sorting ornaments Sunday morning and start delivering that night, continuing each day through Christmas. Hospitals include Alexian Brothers in Elk Grove Village, St. Alexius Medical Center in Hoffman Estates, Children's Memorial and others in Chicago. A caravan of friends, including Laurie Swatek of Glen Ellyn, will help deliver the gifts.
"She just really moved me with her spirit. She's always so amazingly positive. I wanted to get involved," Swatek said. "It just amazed me that one person had so much going on and is being so selfless. She's an inspiration to people ... you can have a great outlook no matter what you're going through."
Elliott herself is not well, having spent Thanksgiving in a light medically induced coma due to complications from a liver biopsy. She's on the liver transplant waiting list and spends several hours every other day undergoing liver dialysis.
"It's really like something out of a movie," Swatek said. "I think, 'How does she keep going?' But she keeps plugging along. She's high octane. She finds meaning in what she is doing and it's fantastic."
How to help
What: Ornament drive for hospitalized children
When: 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. weekdays and 11 a.m. to 2 a.m. weekends through Sunday
Where: Lucky Strike Lanes, 100 Yorktown Center at Butterfield Road and Highland Avenue in Lombard