Huntley bakery surprises hospice with holiday care packages for pediatric patients

It was still nearly a month until Christmas, but Jennifer Mangers woke up to a holiday surprise that brought her to tears.

Mangers manages the pediatric services team for JourneyCare, a nonprofit hospice and palliative care organization that serves 13 counties throughout Illinois, including patients throughout the Fox Valley. As she scrolled through Facebook, Jennifer spotted a post from Blessed Little Kitchen in Huntley thanking their customers and community for donating hundreds of items - all in less than four hours - to create holiday care packages for each of JourneyCare's youngest patients and their families.

"I just couldn't believe it," Mangers said. "They jumped at this opportunity to help and it was very humbling."

The connection between JourneyCare and Blessed Little Kitchen started this fall, as Mangers began planning a virtual version of JourneyCare's annual holiday party for their pediatric families.

Typically, the event brings families together for lunch, bowling, activities, toys donated by Assurance in Schaumburg, craft boxes donated by Holiday Heroes Foundation in Chicago, and pictures with Santa. But due to COVID-19 precautions, the event is completely online this year with virtual Santa visits and more.

So, Mangers reached out to Blessed Little Kitchen in her hometown of Huntley, asking if they could bake gingerbread houses for the pediatric families to build in their homes and show off together for this year's online party.

"Because of the losses so many small businesses are seeing during COVID-19, I wanted to find a local business to support," Mangers said. "I shop at Blessed Little Bakery frequently and they were willing to take our order of 115 houses at a discount, and I was so grateful for that in itself."

But after Blessed Little Kitchen owner Mary Holzkopf took the order, she knew that she wanted to do more for the JourneyCare children and their families, all who are living with serious or life-threatening illnesses like cancer or genetic diseases.

"I have five children of my own, and honestly cannot conceive of what these families are going through," Holzkopf said. "I knew I wanted to help, and comfort packages came to mind. I knew I couldn't do it alone, so I put the call out to my customers, who are some of the most generous humans you will meet in your life. They always show up, and in big ways."

And they showed up again for JourneyCare. Within four hours, Amazon packages of donated blankets, slippers, toys and more came flying into the bakery.

Holzkopf, her children and several staff members spent an entire weekend sorting the items and building the care packages, which will be shared with the JourneyCare pediatric patients and their families the day of the party in late December.

There were so many items that it took a small team from JourneyCare and the bakery more than an hour to load them into five SUVs early this month.

Mangers said the care packages will go a long way toward meeting the goal of the annual holiday party: trying to provide a bit of normalcy to the patients and their families, who need a break from the constant grind of their medical conditions.

"I think these families are going to be blown away by this surprise," she said. "Generosity and kindness like this is what we need more of today in the world."