Oak Lawn Community H.S. Grads Receive Blue Island Scholarships

Christie Lewis (left) and Kaylin Schrader (Photos: Submitted by Subjects)

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Two Oak Lawn Community High School graduates have received scholarships from Blue Island Community Healthcare Foundation. Recipients Christie Lewis from Hometown and Kaylin Schrader of Oak Lawn are students in the School of Nursing at Saint Xavier University.

“I can’t point to a specific aha! moment that made me want to be a nurse,” Christie Lewis says, but rather it was all the hours she spent in hospitals as a teen because of her diabetes (Christie was diagnosed with Type I diabetes at age 15) and visits with her mom, a breast cancer survivor for four years. She points to the many great nurses her family saw during those times as her collective inspiration to become a nurse. Her first ambition after graduation is to do critical care nursing, and later, pediatric diabetes education. Christie explains, “I want to do diabetes education with kids because I’ll have authority on the topic and will be able to help them adjust. If they do find a cure, I suppose I’ll be out of a job, but the silver lining is that there won’t be diabetes anymore. So it’s a win either way.”

Christie, a Certified Nursing Assistant (CNA), works at Advocate Christ Medical Center on the adult rehab floor, along with fellow CNA, Kaylin Schrader. Both students appreciate the experience they’re getting at Christ, noting that the adult rehab floor is a great place to learn because it affords them the “chance to work with stroke patients, cardiac patients, those who have suffered spinal cord injuries,” and, because the hospital is a Level 1 Trauma Center, people with gunshot wounds.

“The best part of the job,” Kaylin says, “is when patients come back to visit us and show off their progress.”

Kaylin had planned to attend SXU for nursing since the age of ten. “My neighbor Geannette was studying nursing at SXU then, and when I’d see her after class, she’d tell me how awesome it was,” she explains. “I still keep in touch with her—she actually works at Christ!” Even though her mind was made up at a young age, Kaylin notes that the process hasn’t always been so simple: “As the first person in my family to go to college, figuring it all out has taken a lot of willpower.”

Although she realizes it will be emotionally difficult, upon earning her R.N., Kaylin plans to work in pediatric oncology. Started in the 1970s as a supporting organization for St. Francis Hospital, Blue Island Community Healthcare Foundation continues the legacy started by St. Francis Hospital, which operated as a nonprofit in Blue Island for over a century. The organization now funds various charitable groups that serve the area in providing such services as health screenings, programs for disabled children and adults, assistance for those with mental illnesses and addictions, and nursing education.