In 2019, Bob and Janet Palkon of Joliet made news in Chicago when they threw a superhero-themed yard party to celebrate two 4-year-old boys.

The couple, who adopted their daughter at birth in 2000 and became foster parents in 2013, had just adopted their two foster sons and invited the neighborhood to celebrate.

“Kids are awesome,” Bob Palkon said. ”They’re hard and a pain in the neck, and they drive me nuts sometimes. But in the end, that’s what you leave behind – the kids, the memories, the influence you have over someone’s life that they can pass onto influencing someone else."

But the real superheroes are Bob and Janet Palkon. They’ve fostered more than 30 children, adopted three of those fosters and serve the foster community in multiple ways, despite their own health challenges.

Bob Palkon, a type 2 diabetic since his 30s, now needs a kidney transplant. Janet Palkon, who battled breast cancer in 2020 and prevailed, is preparing for a double mastectomy in the hopes she’ll be allowed to donate a kidney to her husband.

“We just want to keep doing what we’re doing,” Janet Palkon said.

Through the years, the couple has turned their Palkon Parties business (“It’s like ‘Build a Bear’ on wheels. We come to the house and do the birthday party,” Janet Palkon said in 2016) into opportunities to provide for other foster families.

Meaning “some of the money we made from the business would support some of the things people needed for foster care,” Bob Palkon said.

These included arranging visits from Santa Claus, the Easter Bunny and other costumed characters (courtesy of Bob Palkon) to buying school supplies, holiday gifts and even basic necessities for foster families.

Janet Palkon previously said she started the business “when I read in The Herald-News about a little boy with a heart ailment who lost his stuffed animal,” Janet said.

One year, the couple visited 104 homes during Easter. They each wore a costume and split the visits.

The Palkons also have organized years of Project Me-Study Buddy Workshops to distribute free backpacks of school supplies to foster children and kids in the community who need them.

Kids also created Study Buddies (a stuffed animal) at the workshop and then wrote their goals for the upcoming school year and tucked them inside the critter. Proceeds from the workshop help purchase more supplies for foster children.

The Palkons’ annual Bunny Bash typically included a catered lunch, photos with the Easter Bunny, crafts, an egg hunt, and the opportunity to hand-stuff a toy Easter critter.

The couple requested attendees bring Easter basket items, clothing and diapers for foster kids.

“We’d arrange to have the foster kids come in later and then have the day for them,” Bob Palkon said.

In 2018, the couple launched an Angel Bear program to comfort children entering the foster care system.

While stuffing their bears in this Build-A-Bear-type experience, the children could write a wish on a slip of paper and tuck it inside their bear before closing it up.

The Palkons hoped to give away 100 bears in 2018. They received requests for almost 600.

“I think a lot of these kids experience a lifetime of heartache,” Palkon said in 2018. “Kids, no matter if they’re 3 or 18, deserve to feel that there are people in the world who want the best for them. You can never love a child too much.”

The Palkons have organized Christmas parties for up to 150 foster children and more egg drops and candy drops than they can count. They have personally hand-delivered holiday gifts and donations.

Janet Palkon often pleads for items on social media groups when she learns about a need: foster families who desperately need clothing and diapers, extra cookie trays for parties, age-appropriate gifts for families suddenly homeless during the holidays.

Bob Palkon was impressed by how “the universe provides” whenever Janet Palkon makes requests.

“One of her strongest attributes is getting families what they need,” Bob Palkon said.

Janet Palkon thinks it’s natural for people to want to help foster children once they understand “how their lives have been.”

“I want to try to give them the best life,” Janet Palkon said.

But the couple is worried their current health struggles might cut their service short.

On April 6, Janet Palkon said on the couple’s GoFundMe page that she needs a full-body scan to make sure she has no lesions in any part of her body. Insurance likely won’t cover the scan.

Janet Palkon also is worried about the loss of work time for the double mastectomy and recovery, especially since “my paycheck pretty much pays our health insurance,” she wrote on GoFundMe.

“While this is all going on, the reality is Bob will most likely begin dialysis,” Janet Palkon wrote. “We are broken. But right now we have no other options of possible living donors.”

Bob Palkon, whose kidneys are rapidly failing, worries about not being around to raise his three adopted sons – ages 10, 10 and 11 – because everything he and Janet Palkon do is ultimately about the children.

And “raising good humans” is what gives their life meaning, Bob Palkon said.

“These kids are every bit mine, even though they’re not genetically mine,” Bob Palkon said. “But I’m there, making a better human out of someone who had less of an advantage to start with than I’d have given him. And that just makes you feel good, too.”

Anyone interested in becoming a living kidney donor for Bob Palkon should call his transplant nurse, Lor Lawson, at 312-413-2952.

For more information and to donate, visit the “Support Janet & Bob Through Their Medical Battles” GoFundMe page.