When Medill senior Jessica Abo crossed the finish line of the Chicago Marathon last weekend, she was both excited and exhausted. But she also was humbled, having raced in memory of a young boy who died from cancer a little more than a week before the race.
During one of his own hospitalizations, the boy, Jarrett Mynear, thought of the idea for a cart that could carry toys to sick children: the Joy Cart. This inspired Abo to start a Northwestern-based branch of the program.
“Jarrett was sick and still managed to push the Cart through the hospital,” Abo said. “That influenced me to work toward developing a program in the Chicago area.”
Abo is looking to form a Joy Cart at Children’s Memorial Hospital. She hopes to achieve her goal by partnering with NU’s Fielder Hillel Center’s charity branch, Tzedek Hillel.
“I feel that working with an established organization such as Tzedek will help get the project underway and keep it going in the future,” Abo said.
Abo learned about Mynear during her junior year, while participating in the Medill Teaching Media program at WDKY-TV in Lexington, Ky. There, Abo met anchor Marvin Bartlett, who recently had written a book about Mynear and the Joy Cart project.
In “The Joy Cart: The True Story of a Boy and His Toys,” Bartlett relays the tale of Mynear, who was 12 years old at the time. By then, the young boy already had undergone a leg amputation, a bone-marrow transplant and six occurrences of various forms of cancer.
“(Mynear’s) simple idea of giving toys to other patients was a great outlet for him,” Bartlett said via e-mail. “He became like Santa Claus who made the rounds once a week instead of once a year. The other kids in the hospital looked up to him and tried to be more like him — generous and upbeat in the face of adversity.”
Abo read Bartlett’s book during the summer and contacted Mynear’s mother to discuss her idea of starting a Joy Cart branch in the Chicago area. It was then Abo learned of Mynear’s goal to establish a Joy Cart in every state.
But on Oct. 4, Abo received an e-mail telling her Mynear had died.
Although she was to run the Chicago Marathon the next weekend, Abo drove eight and a half hours to Mynear’s funeral in Kentucky.
The boy’s mother informed Abo that Mynear’s favorite color was yellow, so Abo wore a yellow ribbon in his honor as she ran the marathon.
After the race, Abo returned to her mission of starting a Joy Cart. She realizes that putting the plan into place will take time, but Abo already has made headway by working with hospital administrators.
“We need to figure out how to get the wheels rolling, literally,” Abo said.
By working through Tzedek, Abo can ensure Joy Cart will continue even after she leaves NU.
“Many students are ecstatic about helping children, and this is a great way to do that,” she said.
