Determined To Lend A Helping Hand
Menomonee Falls – This year Santa is in luck, thanks to big-hearted kids like Pewaukee resident Emilie Janzen, age 5.
Using the premise that toy production was behind schedule and that Santa and his elves needed help, Cousins Subs called on kids to write Santa a letter offering to lend a hand.
Thousands of kids answered the call. However, Emilie’s eagerness to help is especially poignant because she was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, also known as ALL. It’s a life-threatening disease that requires years of arduous chemotherapy, which can cause agonizing side effects. But despite the hardships, it seems nothing can stop Emilie from helping Santa.
“Oh, she believes in Santa, she wants to help him,” said Kelly Janzen, Emilie’s mother. “When I asked her if she wanted to go on a train to the North Pole to help Santa, she was so excited.”
Emilie will join 25 lucky area children who will be taking a magical train ride on Saturday Dec. 13 from the Downtown Milwaukee Amtrak station to the “North Pole” – actually the Gen. Mitchell International Airport Amtrak station. The event is the culmination of the Letters to Santa campaign. For every letter written, Cousins will donate $1 up to $2,000 to the Make-A-Wish Foundation of Wisconsin. To date, 2,924 kids have entered.
Kelly found out about the promotion through Mia Blair, who owns and operates two Cousins Subs stores.
“I have a friend who owns a hair salon and I met Kelly and little Emilie through them,” said Blair. “I found out that Emilie’s favorite sub was Cousins’ ham and cheese, so I decided to hold a fundraiser for her at one of my stores. Then I urged Kelly to enter Emilie into the Letters to Santa promotion.”
Described by her mother as an “extrovert” and by Blair as “a little firecracker,” Emilie is a typical happy-go-lucky little girl who loves Tinkerbelle and princesses. But despite her belief in Santa and flying reindeers, she is very aware that she was diagnosed with a serious illness.
For now Emilie’s ALL is in remission, but her mother said she will require chemotherapy until 2010. Luckily, Emilie has a good prognosis. The cure rate for ALL is about 80 percent, but her mother said Emilie’s is higher than that.
“She still has a ways to go,” said Kelly. “But we have good reason to be hopeful.”
About Cousins Subs
Cousins Subs is based in Milwaukee, Wis., and is a national sub sandwich chain with stores throughout the Midwest and on the West Coast. The tradition of Cousins Subs started in 1972, when two transplanted cousins from Atlantic City saw the need for an East coast–style sub shop in their new hometown. They patterned their subs after the hoagie, grinder, hero and sub sandwiches they enjoyed back East. And with a dedication to delivering quality subs at fair prices, they opened their first restaurant. From the start, the two used bread baked fresh every morning and insisted on using only the finest, freshest ingredients.
