December 02, 2009 - For Immediate Release

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MELROSE PARK FIRE DEPARTMENT TO SHARE EARLY SPARK OF LOVE AT LOYOLA

Firefighters to drop off toys for sick children at Loyola’s Ronald McDonald Children’s Hospital

MAYWOOD -- Melrose Park firefighters will be doing their part to help lift the holiday spirits of sick children who might have to spend some time in the Ronald McDonald Children’s Hospital of Loyola University Medical Center due to illness during the Christmas season.

The firefighters will be playing the role of the Jolly Old Elf himself when they drop off more than $2,500 in toys to be distributed to children at the hospital at 10 a.m., Thursday, Dec. 3 at the hospital located on the campus of Loyola University Medical Center in Maywood.

Based in the western suburbs of Chicago, Loyola University Health System is a quaternary care system with a 61-acre main medical center campus, the 36-acre Gottlieb Memorial Hospital campus and 28 primary and specialty care facilities in Cook, Will and DuPage counties. The medical center campus is conveniently located in Maywood, 13 miles west of the Chicago Loop and 8 miles east of Oak Brook, Ill. The heart of the medical center campus, Loyola University Hospital, is a 561-licensed-bed facility. It houses a Level 1 Trauma Center, a Burn Center and the Ronald McDonald® Children's Hospital of Loyola University Medical Center. Also on campus are the Cardinal Bernardin Cancer Center, Loyola Outpatient Center, Center for Heart & Vascular Medicine and Loyola Oral Health Center as well as the LUC Stritch School of Medicine, the LUC Marcella Niehoff School of Nursing and the Loyola Center for Fitness. Loyola's Gottlieb Memorial Hospital campus in Melrose Park includes the 264-bed community hospital, the Gottlieb Center for Fitness and the Marjorie G. Weinberg Cancer Care Center.