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1
HOUSE RESOLUTION

 
2     WHEREAS, The members of the Illinois House of
3 Representatives are pleased to recognize a brave young man,
4 Reid Colliander, and to share his amazing story; and
 
5     WHEREAS, This is the story of a very fortunate family,
6 their experience with nearly losing a child, and what has grown
7 out of that experience; Ken Colliander and his wife, Kathy
8 Foote-Colliander, are the proud parents of three children,
9 Grant, Dain, and Reid; and
 
10     WHEREAS, From a very young age, Reid has always been a
11 caring and compassionate child; in preschool and Kindergarten,
12 the teachers fell in love with Reid because he was funny,
13 bright, sociable, and a hard worker; there was little concern
14 for the fact that he could not write and never showed any
15 interest in coloring or drawing; he went through all the
16 preschool screenings and parent conferences available; Reid
17 developed all milestones well within the normal ranges, though
18 a little clumsily; at 6 years old, Reid entered 1st grade in
19 Mrs. Cassidy's class at Churchill Elementary School in Glen
20 Ellyn; and
 
21     WHEREAS, During the second week of 1st grade, when Mrs.
22 Cassidy contacted Reid's parents, Reid's mother Kathy jokingly

 

 

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1 asked Mrs. Cassidy, "Are you calling to tell me that Reid is
2 the smartest 1st grader you have ever had?"; Mrs. Cassidy
3 calmly replied, "Not this call, maybe the next call;" Mrs.
4 Cassidy is a 20-year veteran teacher and very astute, even with
5 an overcrowded class and saw a tremor in Reid's hand, never
6 observed by anyone else; she urged Reid's family to have him
7 evaluated and after appropriate paperwork was completed, she
8 had a conference with Reid's pediatrician, Dr. David Dungan;
9 Dr. Dungan ordered an MRI, with no one expecting the test to
10 reveal anything of concern; after running a series of scans,
11 the radiologist told Reid's parents additional testing was
12 needed and for the first time they were very concerned; Reid's
13 parents knew that life would change as soon as they spoke to
14 Dr. Dungan; they took Reid out to lunch and the toy store, and
15 after arriving home listened to a message from Dr. Dungan
16 urging them to call as soon as possible; and
 
17     WHEREAS, Dr. Dungan gave Reid's parents the news that Reid
18 had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball in his cerebellum;
19 Reid's parents called family and friends and within minutes
20 they were all at the Colliander home; endless hours were spent
21 on the Internet researching brain tumors, surgeries, and
22 doctors; a neighbor, Mark Malec, contacted his old roommate
23 from Notre Dame, Dr. John Costello, who was a cardiologist at
24 Children's Memorial Hospital; Dr. Costello called his
25 colleague Dr. Stew Goldman, an oncologist in the Falk Brain

 

 

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1 Tumor Clinic at Children's Memorial Hospital; Dr. Goldman spent
2 the Sunday between Christmas and New Year's Day on the phone
3 with Reid's parents answering endless questions and then
4 arranged an appointment with neurosurgeon Dr. Tadanori Tomita;
5 and
 
6     WHEREAS, Reid's parents researched Children's Memorial
7 Hospital, Dr. Tomita, Dr. Goldman and the Falk Brain Tumor
8 Clinic and discovered that these two doctors were the best in
9 the country; Reid and his parents went to Chicago for a long
10 day of doctors' appointments; the brain tumor clinic was very
11 crowded and there was a very long wait; the hospital had many
12 volunteers to play with the waiting children and Reid had a
13 great time; after the tests were completed, the doctors met
14 with Reid's parents; Dr. Tomita explained what he thought the
15 problem was and presented evidence to support his theory; it
16 was a benign astrosytoma in the cerebellum, and it needed to be
17 removed; the family went home, did more research, and talked
18 with more friends and family; telephone calls of support and
19 medical contacts were endless; Jennifer Larabee and Pat Bates
20 both had friends who were radiologists and were available to
21 read the scans; toys for Reid began to arrive, as well as meals
22 for the family and endless offers to watch Reid's two younger
23 brothers; the outpouring of support was amazing and uplifting;
24 and
 

 

 

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1     WHEREAS, After getting another opinion, the Collianders
2 decided that Children's Memorial Hospital was the best place to
3 care for their son; Reid had the surgery on January 8, 2003 and
4 after a 7-hour operation, Reid was in recovery and then the
5 Intensive Care Unit; Reid woke in a lot of pain and seemingly a
6 different person; this lasted for three days; each night Reid
7 would wake and try to escape the hospital, and he would try to
8 pull out all his tubes; his parents stayed at the hospital to
9 help calm him; on the 4th day, Reid awoke and was completely
10 himself again; Reid went home from the hospital on the 5th day,
11 arriving home to balloons, flowers, cookies, gifts, and a huge
12 "Welcome Home" sign; the amazing thing that the Collianders
13 experienced was the unrelenting support from friends, family,
14 and neighbors; people that didn't even know the Collianders
15 would leave gifts for Reid, and meals came for months; and
 
16     WHEREAS, When Reid returned to school Mrs. Cassidy, his
17 classroom teacher, and Mrs. Linkman, his special education
18 teacher, needed to re-teach him his letters, sounds, reading,
19 writing, and numbers; his teachers have worked tirelessly to
20 help Reid in every way possible; Reid will move on to 6th grade
21 at Hadley Junior High School in September and has caught up to
22 his grade level; Reid also required physical therapy,
23 occupational therapy, and vision therapy; he was fortunate to
24 have amazing medical care from Dr. Gesina Keating, his
25 neurologist at Children's Memorial Hospital, Jen Stone at

 

 

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1 Easter Seals and many others; and
 
2     WHEREAS, Six months after his surgery, Reid had his first
3 grand mal seizure while on a family camping trip; as a result,
4 there were more doctors' appointments and testing to determine
5 why he was having seizures; Dr. Gesina Keating from Children's
6 Memorial Hospital has worked with Reid and his family to
7 understand seizures and how to rise above the challenges; and
 
8     WHEREAS, It was difficult for Reid to play baseball and
9 basketball; Reid had a hard time and almost never hit the
10 baseball and could not dribble a basketball; the kids and
11 families cheered for Reid, "good try", "nice cut", "it's okay",
12 "shake it off"; in the summer of 2006, Reid's cousin, Kevin
13 Jakabouskas, had just graduated from Lewis University with a
14 degree in sports management and worked at the Chicago Bulls and
15 White Sox Training Academy teaching baseball; Kevin worked
16 endlessly with Reid three days a week in the summer, then all
17 winter one day a week; Reid recently hit his first triple and
18 will soon try out for the Glen Ellyn baseball travel team; and
 
19     WHEREAS, The family learned quickly that many
20 rehabilitation therapies are not covered by health insurance;
21 after months of these therapies and thousands of dollars, the
22 family was running out of money; Reid's Uncle Mark and Aunt
23 Judy, and their friends at the Odd Fellows, organized a

 

 

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1 fundraiser to help with the cost of additional testing and
2 therapies; together they raised $6,000 for the family and Reid
3 was able to receive very expensive neurophysiology and
4 educational development testing; and
 
5     WHEREAS, In the summer of 2005, Reid turned a corner, no
6 longer needing to be served, his parents encouraged him to
7 begin serving others; he still faced physical challenges and
8 seizures, but needed to deal with them, and to think of himself
9 as cured; his parents knew how blessed he was to be as high
10 functioning as he was; Reid's parents talked to all three of
11 their boys about giving back and talked to them about hosting a
12 lemonade stand at the town's highly attended July 4th parade;
13 and
 
14     WHEREAS, The family's dental hygienist, Kathy Kus, lost her
15 daughter Heather to a brain tumor 22 years ago; Reid's doctor,
16 Dr. Tomita, had treated Heather at Children's Memorial
17 Hospital; the Kus family lived on the parade route on Main
18 Street and agreed to let the kids host the first annual Reid's
19 Lemon-AID stand there; the proceeds would go to Children's
20 Memorial Hospital, Brain Tumor Research; the concept of
21 Lemon-AID came from Megan Stockman, a mother of one of Reid's
22 friends, Nolan; Megan Stockman hand painted a banner, Julie
23 Mudge created a logo, and US Bank paid for t-shirts for the
24 kids; Reid asked some guys on the baseball team and some other

 

 

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1 friends if they would help with the stand and they agreed; the
2 concept was simple: free lemonade and all donations were
3 accepted graciously; The Glen Ellyn News ran a story about the
4 upcoming event and about the kids; and
 
5     WHEREAS, On the morning of July 4th, the Collianders
6 received a call from Jon Duncanson of CBS 2 News requesting to
7 come to the parade and report on what the kids were doing; CBS
8 News ran the story for days, coining Reid's Lemon-AID and Glen
9 Ellyn "a Norman Rockwell painting coming to life;" at the end
10 of the day they had raised $1,200; after the July 4th parade,
11 Busy Bee Barber offered to sponsor the group at the Glen Ellyn
12 Holiday Walk, another well-attended local event in November;
13 the men at Busy Bee purchased all the needed supplies and let
14 the children set up Reid's Lemon-AID in the shop for their
15 annual customer appreciation party; and
 
16     WHEREAS, The boys from Reid's Indian Guide tribe decided
17 they wanted to help; Glen Ellyn hosts an annual cardboard boat
18 regatta as part of their July 4th celebration; they decided to
19 build a Reid's Lemon-AID cardboard boat to race; the children
20 had to race the boat twice and won the team spirit award, and
21 they decided to give the trophy to the Brain Tumor Clinic at
22 Children's Memorial Hospital; Reid's Lemon-AID hosted their
23 second annual stand at the 2006 July 4th parade, this time with
24 two stands and more children helping; Busy Bee Barber Shop

 

 

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1 again invited Reid's Lemon-AID to participate in the annual
2 Holiday Walk; the children had raised $9,000 total after the
3 last event; and
 
4     WHEREAS, On Thanksgiving Day last year, the Colliander
5 Family and their friends, the Hendersons, participated in
6 Elmhurst's Dan Gibbons' Turkey Trot for the food depository; in
7 over 20 years, the event has raised over $1 million; Reid heard
8 this and decided Reid's Lemon-AID could raise $1 million as
9 well; during Reid's recovery, bike riding was really difficult
10 with stopping, starting, turning, uneven sidewalks, and cars
11 all as obstacles to Reid; Reid's Ride for Research, and a
12 family fun bike ride was born as a result; and
 
13     WHEREAS, Good friends of the Collianders, Penny Linneweh,
14 Lieutenant of Kiwanis of Glen Ellyn, and Rich Ducar, owner of
15 the Bike Shop of Glen Ellyn, got on board; Penny arranged for
16 Kiwanis to insure the event and provide volunteers for the
17 course, without which the ride could not have taken place; Rich
18 and his bike shop buddies helped lay out the course and later
19 performed bike safety checks; the Glen Ellyn Park District also
20 really stepped up to the plate, arranging the schedule so that
21 there were no baseball or softball games until late that
22 morning, enabling the 2,000 plus children and their families to
23 participate in the ride; the Glen Ellyn Police and the Village
24 of Glen Ellyn were instrumental in getting the event off the

 

 

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1 ground, clearing the way through permits, street closures, and
2 public parking lot closures; the children made a formal
3 presentation to the village board requesting approval; Beth
4 Fawcett, a former marketing executive handled marketing, and
5 Katie Vogg, a former operations executive, handled all of the
6 endless logistics and volunteers; and
 
7     WHEREAS, Doreen Domask, an executive at an Internet
8 marketing company did an amazing job promoting the event;
9 Elizabeth Bischoff, a former teacher helped coordinate and
10 organize the 40 children for their work details; Betty Crane,
11 an inactive attorney, handled many legal issues and security
12 detail; Christina Anderson, a former city planner, handled the
13 many village issues; Rose Kallas, a former food service owner,
14 handled all the food and board of health; Beth Maroney, Heidi
15 McTaggart managed the successful silent auction; Reid and his
16 friends were heavily involved in the planning; this group of
17 mostly fifth-graders went to dozens of local businesses
18 requesting support in the form of cash donations, silent
19 auction items, signs in windows, and other methods were quite
20 successful; along the way, the children delivered formal
21 presentations to numerous organizations to garner support for
22 the event, participated in letter-writing campaigns,
23 distributed flyers, helped assemble silent auction baskets,
24 and even baked for the bake sale; they came up with very
25 creative ideas, such as juggling lemons for entertainment at

 

 

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1 the Ride, and painting windows in town to advertise the event;
2 and they performed as a group at the Churchill Talent Show; and
 
3     WHEREAS, On April 21st, 2007, over four hundred people
4 participated and just under $30,000 was raised for Children's
5 Memorial Hospital through registrations, the silent auction,
6 the bake sale, and cash donations; there were clowns, face
7 painting, a DJ, Reid's Lemon-AID, and Dairy Queen ice cream;
8 Reid's cousin and baseball extraordinaire, Kevin Jakabouskas,
9 is also a rocker and wrote and recorded a song about the
10 struggles and triumphs that created Reid's Lemon-AID,
11 performing the song and many others live at the ride; Reid was
12 nervous before the ride started, because he is still not
13 perfectly comfortable on a bike and was afraid he would fall;
14 he got through it with his friends by his side and raised his
15 fist in triumph when he reached the bike corral, a personal
16 triumph; and
 
17     WHEREAS, Reid Colliander is someone that the people of the
18 State of Illinois can hold up, treasure, and admire; through
19 this young man's determination money has been raised to help
20 others, and he continues to see his eventual goal of $1,000,000
21 raised; therefore, be it
 
22     RESOLVED, BY THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES OF THE
23 NINETY-FIFTH GENERAL ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF ILLINOIS, that we

 

 

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1 recognize the hard work and dedication of Reid Colliander and
2 his family, friends, neighbors, and total strangers who have
3 stepped up to help with a great cause and to see the dreams of
4 this young man realized; and be it further
 
5     RESOLVED, That a suitable copy of this resolution be
6 presented to Reid Colliander as a symbol of our respect,
7 admiration, and esteem.