Janet Palkon

By ALLISON SELK

Shaw Media correspondent

Janet Palkon has taken her love of children and intertwined it with her business to give back to others, even through a cancer diagnosis.

“Now, especially with illness, I am thankful to be here,” Palkon said. “I’m getting through it, a lot of people don’t, and I know that.”

In 2013, Palkon and her husband, Bob, began to foster children in their Joliet home. Since that time, they have fostered 30 children and adopted three boys.

The business, Palkon Parties, travels to events to give a stuffed animal creation experience to guests. In addition to programming to support foster children and families, she uses her business concept to brighten the days of others.

Palkon works with Lutheran Child and Family Services during Christmas and Easter, stuffing Easter baskets with donations or accepting donations of fully stuffed baskets. During Christmas she matches a foster child with a sponsor, who buys gifts and, on occasion, delivers them to the child.

Project Me bloomed when Palkon realized how little the foster kids have with them; even though foster parents receive monetary support, it’s rarely enough for what children require. She hosts back-to-school drives, and throughout the year, donations of clothes, diapers, and the like fill the Palkon home.

In response to her 2020 cancer diagnosis, Palkon created kits to be dropped off to people with cancer. She reached out to local nonprofit Pink Heals Joliet and gave them 90 bears to give to the Pink Heals home visit recipients for the season.

After Palkon’s father, Richard Jaworowski, passed away in July, she created a project called RICHly Deserving Birthday Party after her father. These parties, designed for children in foster care, are sponsored, so the foster family incurs no cost. These parties allow the children to create a stuffed animal and make a wish on the heart that goes inside.

“I say it’s stuffed with love,” Palkon said.

Palkon puts out information on her Facebook page and through word of mouth, and people generously help. The work she does for children and foster families does not always stay within the realm of her personal programs — sometimes she hears of a struggling family and takes it upon herself to brighten their day.

For example, Palkon met Kelly McDermott via Facebook, a foster mom in the process of adopting three foster children who faced financial struggles due to her husband’s health complications. This left the family in a scary time right before the holidays in 2018.

“She mentioned she would like Santa to visit with the kids during Christmas, my husband was just out of the hospital so it was a hard time to get out,” McDermott said.

McDermott recalled the night Santa was to visit. “I saw flashing lights and a cavalcade of cars, fire engines, police cars, Santa on a fire truck and about 100 elves with gifts to come and help with our Christmas.”

She said the group stayed 20 minutes and the children were overwhelmed with the response.

“She’s a force,” she says. “They all left and we sat with the bags of donations and gifts. I sat down and wondered how did we get so blessed by this one amazing angel,” McDermott said.

Bob Palkon said of his wife, “I’m proud of her; she does a lot of things that are unsung, and not for attention.” He described her as caring and other-centered.