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Pink Lemonade 5K in Mount Prospect to raise cancer awareness

After Jill Swanson Peltier was diagnosed with stage three colon cancer and underwent chemotherapy, the Mount Prospect resident decided she wanted to help others going through treatment.

“There's a million charities out there for kids going through this, but not a whole lot for adults,” she said.

The charity she launched has been around for just over a year now, and in an effort to raise cancer awareness in the Mount Prospect community, Lemons of Love is hosting its first Pink Lemonade 5k Oct. 11, at Lions Park.

Since 2014, Swanson Peltier and Lemons of Love have distributed bags, packed with products she found essential in her own treatment, to cancer patients in local hospitals and across the nation.

“With the bags, we're not curing anything, but we're making things brighter,” Swanson Peltier said.

The bags include items from lemon-scented lotion for “dry chemo skin” to organic ginger tea for upset stomachs.

Each bag, hand-sewn by volunteers, also contains a unique “happy picture” drawn by a child.

“When people get these bags, they often say the best part about it is the happy picture,” Swanson Peltier said.

More than 700 cancer patients have received bags or boxes of essential products from Lemons of Love.

Swanson Peltier says she's always been one to make lemonade when life hand her lemons.

“I'm just that person,” she said. “Whatever bad comes my way, I always find the best in it.”

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