Community Corner

Children to Sell Lemonade for Shorewood Teen with Cancer

Alex's lemonade stand will take place this Friday from 3 to 8 p.m. at 11036 S. Tripp Ave. in Oak Lawn to raise money for Alex Czuczuk and his family.

By Patch Intern Mary Kate Brogan

He can’t play hockey. He can’t place-kick for the football team. He can’t even run down the block he played on as a kid. But for every “can’t” that 16-year-old Alex Czuczuk encounters, he runs into a lot more "cans." He can fight. He can pray. He can believe. 

And with the help of the Oak Lawn community and a group of kids ranging in age from 7 to 12 years old, Alex has gained just a little more hope.

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Alex Czuczuk, of Shorewood, has osteosarcoma, a type of bone cancer that occurs most commonly in children and teens. With osteosarcoma, tumors most often form in areas where the bone is growing quickly. For Alex, this bone is his left femur. 

Since the Minooka High School sophomore was diagnosed last September, he has undergone chemotherapy, blood transfusions, platelet replacements and a limb salvage surgery in which his femur bone and left knee were replaced with titanium. 

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To learn more about Alex, read this post from Shorewood Patch.

His aunt, Oak Lawn resident Julie Ternes, says that despite having every possible side effect of chemotherapy a person can have, Alex has stayed strong.

“He’s remained a complete trooper through the whole thing,” Ternes says. “Had his ups and downs, but never given up.”

But Alex is not alone in his fight. On top of Ternes starting a fundraising page on the Czuczuks’ behalf, a book club made up of 11 St. Catherine's schoolchildren from the Oak Lawn community, including three of Ternes’ own kids, will be putting on a lemonade stand to benefit Alex and his family.

The lemonade stand will be this Friday, June 21, from 3 to 8 p.m. at 11036 S. Tripp Ave. in Oak Lawn, just off 111th between Pulaski and Kostner. Each cup will be $1, and customers who give more than $1 will be rewarded with heart-shaped fliers for “giving a hand to Alex who’s battling cancer.”

The children’s book club is reading The Lemonade War by Jacqueline Davies, a story about a brother and sister who compete to raise the most money selling lemonade and eventually, they both give the money to a good cause. 

Book club leader Caryn Talty, a former special education teacher and mother of four, says the kids unanimously voted to donate the money they raise to Alex and his family rather than split it and keep it.

“The cost for chemotherapy and just for some of the drugs he has to take are astronomical,” Talty says. “Some of these pills are $100 a pill, and a lot of it’s not covered on the insurance policy.

“I think about how I would feel if I were in that situation, and I would certainly hope that others would be that kind and generous to reach out and help me, and that’s why we’re doing it.”

Ternes says Alex’s family wants to raise awareness, and she hopes this fundraiser will do that as well.

“You probably think to yourself, ‘If I would’ve known that this pain was this back then, maybe we wouldn’t be in the position we are today,’” she says. “If you’ve got a pain, go for that X-ray, and if you get that X-ray and they say it’s fine, then I think you should demand that MRI.”


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