2006 Volunteer Center Awards Luncheon
Thursday, April 27, 2006
Featured Speaker:
Julie Donovan of Habitat for Humanity
AWARD RECIPIENTS
Sponsored by
The success of this event in recent years is due in large part to the sponsorship of LaSalle Bank/ABN AMRO. Their dedication to community is enormous, as they support the outside philanthropic activities of their employees. We are but a small entity of the many agencies they support. One of their largest commitments is their effort to expand the charitable impact of the LaSalle Bank sporting events, so they have begun a LaSalle Bank Sports Charitable Fund. They formed a partnership with the Chicago Community Trust to support community needs. Money raised will be donated to charitable organizations that assist in sustaining a healthy environment and encouraging children and adults to lead healthy lifestyles. Contributions for the fund will be raised through their LaSalle Bank sporting events, including the Chicago Marathon, the Shamrock Shuffle, the LaSalle Bank Open, the LaSalle Bank Reeds Lake Run, The Run Wild for the Detroit Zoo, The Columbus Distance Classic and the LaSalle Bank Chicago Distance Classic. The Chicago marathon alone has over 50 charities involved. Congratulations and thank you LaSalle for your sponsorship and your ongoing philanthropies.
North Shore Magazine/Pioneer Press
Those of you who joined us last year will remember we gave Susan Noyes
recognition for among many other large acts of community involvement and
volunteerism, the fact that she and her family decided in lieu of getting
their own Christmas gifts, that they would instead donate over 100 new
coats to Good News Community Soup Kitchen patrons. It felt so right, Susan
joined forces with us and North Shore Magazine, where she is a contributing
writer, and asked if they and Pioneer Press would like to become involved
in another coat collection this past Christmas. Of course it was enthusiastically
endorsed and North Shore Magazine Editor Sherry Thomas, then Susan Karol
and Larry Green of Pioneer Press also accepted the challenge and Warming
Hearts and Hands was born. Sherry jumped right in and wrote several editorials
and a logo was created by local Winnetka artist Sally Stanley, and many
full page ads occurred in both magazines encouraging the community to
become involved and donate the necessary funds to purchase over 400 coats
this time to a variety of homeless agencies. Enter Lea Murray as our board
representative to set up with her committee which agencies were to receive
the coats, what sizes and how many male and female and youth coats were
needed for specific agencies. Over $27,000 in contributions from the community
and employees of North Shore Magazine and Pioneer Press later, over 500
recipients from eight agencies received a new, warm coat to make the season
less painful and full of warmth. Readers were asked, “If a neighbor
needed the coat off your back, would you give it him? Of course this community
would—and did. One woman read about it and hand knit 40 scarves,
while another community group donated more than 100 gently used coats.
We were proud to work with North Shore Magazine and Pioneer Press on this
effort and we understand plans are under way to once again warm even more
hearts and hands.
Left to right: Lea Murray, Susan Noyes, Sherry Thomas (Editor, North Shore Magazine), Susan Karol (Pioneer Press)
Helen Sweitzer
Our next recipient, Helen Sweitzer, lives with her family in Wilmette.
Her husband is a New Trier alum and she grew up in South Africa. In an
effort to involve her young children with families who have a less comfortable
lifestyle than theirs, Helen connected her family with an organization
called Interfaith Refugee and Immigration Ministries, the IRIM. They were
looking for volunteers in numerous capacities, including working with
refugee children. They began by helping with the after school program
and playing with the kids and helping them with alphabet basics. She and
her kids made a strong connection to the young people from Somali due
to her African background. In addition to the Somali children, there were
Afghan, Palestinian and other nationals that were there as well. From
there, Helen volunteered to teach ESL to a group of 5 Somali women and
their children. She works with them once a week for three hours. This
class is part of the Women’s Empowerment Program, offering these
women the skills to survive in our country. The program offers sewing
classes, classes on birth control and women’s health, and a variety
of other programs to empower women through education. Helen is also a
mentor for a woman who fled Liberia after seeing her husband and other
family members killed. It is a one on one commitment as she is her teacher,
advocate and friend. She’ll help her make calls to the doctor and
her children’s school for her. Helen and her family also mentor
another entire family from Somalia. They visit with them every weekend,
taking them to the zoo, the Hancock, Navy Pier, movies, and will bring
them up here to meet their friends at their kids’ soccer and basketball
games and the beach and park in the summer. The Sweitzers collect toys,
clothes and food for them when needed. With a quick e-mail to her friends,
she is able to gather necessities immediately. She will also take neighbors
and friends down to the IRIM programs with them to share the experience.
The latest adventure of the Sweitzer family is helping new refugees set
up their apartments, meet them at the airport and get them settled. Helen
wanted us to share with you that the IRIM needs more volunteers and has
many opportunities available.
Helen Sweitzer, IRIM volunteer
Ken Meyers
The next two recipients are helping reshape our attitudes about depression
and suicide. It is not our intent to compare the two, nor provide commentary
on the most effective methodology, rather to applaud both for their
courage in tackling this subject and helping their community become
educated by devoting themselves to raising awareness about the power
of depression and its potentially devastating results. I am awestruck
by their strength and contagious passion.
Ken Meyers’ focus is on providing young people with information
to heighten their awareness around the difficult yet real issues surrounding
suicide and acquaintance rape. In February 2004 Ken lost his beloved
niece, Elyssa Meyers, a young New Trier High School student to suicide.
She had been a victim of an acquaintance rape which contributed to her
eventual suicide. Through Ken’s personal experience, the students
engage in not only the factual and clinical information but also the
emotional effects that suicide and rape can have on a family and a community.
Determined to raise awareness on the two subjects, Ken has educated
over 4,000 North Shore middle school and high school students and over
300 parents about both subjects since the fall 2004 through his Links-North
Shore Youth Health Service Community Education presentations. In addition
to his Community Education presentations, Ken is serving his second
year as President of the Links’ Board of Directors. Links-North
Shore Youth Health Service is a not-for-profit social service agency
that supports adolescents by providing them with resources to make informed
decisions about their health and sexuality. Those who know him describe
him as a giving, sweet and generous man.
By interacting with teenagers, Ken’s hope is that we are arming
young people with information to prevent one more suicide or one more
incident of sexual abuse in our community. Helping teens get the help
they need by identifying the prevalence and prevention of acquaintance
rape are such important goals that Ken wishes to share. Thank you Ken,
for your generosity in spirit and strength to help bring about positive
solutions.
Ken Meyers, LINKS
Erika’s Lighthouse
Out of our tragedies so often come our successes. Erika’s Lighthouse
is an organization that is the embodiment of that statement. It was created
at the Neucranz’s kitchen table in April, 2004 as dear friends grieved
with Ginny and Tom over the loss of their 8th grade Washburne daughter
Erika to suicide. The measure of success in this particular case is the
degree to which this organization has penetrated the community, and how
many tentacles of volunteers and activities have grown from this grass-roots
group. They began by incorporating and becoming a 501-C-3 tax exempt organization,
and created a Professional Advisory Board consisting of educational, mental
health and social service professionals. There is a Board and executive
council who have attended and researched mental health seminars, video
and written materials which helps them support education and treatment
for adolescents suffering from depression. They also have a youth board
to help kids become a part of the solution and help plan events. One of
the best descriptors of Erika’s Lighthouse is the first line from
its mission: Erika’s Lighthouse: A Beacon of Hope for Adolescent
Depression, is a charitable, educational organization dedicated to protecting
the precious lives of children suffering from minor and major depression
disorders.
They helped fund and implement a depression awareness and intervention
program called Red Flags that includes the video “Claires’
Story” at Washburne School, where students, their parents, and all
school staff are helped to recognize and respond appropriately to signs
of depression and related mental disorders. There is much discussion and
evaluation with the students. Erika’s Lighthouse has an upcoming
walk-a-thon and fundraiser and encourages all to join in this effort to
help children and their families deal with depression. Their volunteers
for their events number in the hundreds.
We cannot go back in time, but we can move forward and arm ourselves with
the necessary information to help each other get the help that is needed.
Although not all the board members and major players in Erika’s
Lighthouse could be here, we are lucky enough to have five of their core
members. Could Ginny Neuckranz, Elaine Tinberg, Susan McGill, Jeni Spinney
and Eileen Hovey please join me up here so we can thank you appropriately
for your important work?
Erika's Lighthouse:
Front row: Elaine Tinberg, Jeni Spinney, Eileen Hovey
Back row: Ginny Neuckranz, Dan Daley, Susan McGill
LAKE COOK HELPING HANDS
Much like other agencies, The Volunteer Center goes into a slower pace
in the summer, and we use that time to regroup and make plans for the
coming year. We are on a reduced schedule and when school is back in
session, we are back full time. On August 30th, I stepped into my office
for the first full day of the year. What is normally a day in which
I ease into our busy Fall season, began as a hurricane, because of a
hurricane. Katrina had just ravaged New Orleans and Gulf states, and
our country and specifically our community stepped into its “gotta
help” mode. The phone was “HOT”, the emails came even
quicker. We tried hard to stop people from jumping in their cars to
drive down there ill prepared to help.
Not a week later I got a simple email on a Sunday morning from Nina
Schroeder and Linda Ginsburg, two women from Glencoe who had just learned
that hurricane evacuees were heading to Lake County to settle for an
unknown length of time. Nina and Linda created Lake Cook Helping Hands
or LCHH from the Serve the Homeless Program at Congregation Am Shalom
to assist and support the PADS organization – PADS stands for
Public Action to Deliver Shelter and Supportive Services. LCHH’s
mission was to obtain goods and distribute them to evacuees and also
to collect monetary donations to be used for direct services and goods
for evacuees.
As soon as I got the email, I forwarded it on to our broadcast list
of about 300 people who are always on the prowl for the hottest opportunities.
So between the many others on their original email and I, the message
was networked to thousands on the north shore. You’ve just gotta
love the email capability. Now we’ve got all the busy people out
there loading up their minivans with anything not tied down in their
homes, eager to donate and help out. Within a day truckloads of stuff
were heading north to the PADS sites. So much stuff was collected so
quickly Am Shalom looked like it was hit by a hurricane. So a drop off
center was rented on Skokie Blvd and Dundee in Northbrook that became
the warehouse for evacuees to shop for their essential items, all donated
by the North Shore residents. The warehouse as a matter of fact was
just recently closed down and has been maintained all this time to help
out approximately 150 displaced persons. Both Nina and Linda state that
they couldn’t have sustained this effort and organized the items
and the myriads of volunteers to help sort, prepare and man the program
if it weren’t for Claudia Schwartz, who they feel truly kept it
fully functioning. Volunteers were needed Saturday mornings and weekdays
to stay on top of the drop off site and keep it organized and available
for our new neighbors to shop. Claudia kept that organized. Because
of the generous donations from the community, LCHH was able to provide
Cell phones, Target and Jewel Gift cards, hot dinners on a daily basis
to those families still around in the winter, continued opportunity
to pick up items in the donation warehouse. Lake Cook Helping Hands
is an extraordinary example of a community at work! It was developed
overnight, supported without question and structured with flexibility
and compassion to accommodate a traumatic situation for people in need.
LCHH hopes that the generosity and volunteer energy they inspired will
continue as people seek ways to service the everyday homelessness that
occurs on the North Shore. Nina, Linda and Claudia, please come up and
collect this one last item.
Lake Cook Helping Hands:
Left to right: Claudia Schwartz, Nina Schroeder, Linda Ginsburg
Martha Drake Award - Volunteer of the Year
The
residents of New Trier Township
for their many volunteer activities in response to
the Katrina hurricane disaster
Lake
Cook Helping Hands was not the only group of people who stepped
up to help last Fall. A day after Katrina hit, Nic Zerebny called and
suggested we form a long term committee to help rebuild the South once
the mud and debris and infrastructure had been settled. So Nic and about
20 community members met many times last Fall in an effort to help organize
groups of us to help Habitat rebuild through the Operation Home Delivery
Program. We all knew it would take some time for the Habitat headquarters
to get this organized, and we know we have interested people on the
ready to help. Nic went down to Americus Georgia in December to help
build the staging area to build these portable houses and he is remaining
in contact with them as the process unfolds. This is going to take a
long time to rebuild so we have our group ready to promote whenever
they are. In addition to Nic, we learned about huge efforts from every
single one of our township schools, public, private and parochial and
all grade levels that collected money, adopted schools in Missippi and
completely restocked them with desks, supplies, AV equipment. Our schools
also collected kitchen supplies for a group of employees in the south
whose homes were wiped out. There were car washes, lemonade stands,
walk a thons, read a thons, and any type of item collected you could
imagine. Marilyn and Bobbie Vender collected mens and women’s
clothing, and the list goes on and on. One thing we recognize this area
has is an abundance of heart and generosity and frankly a lot of stuff!
We were amazed at the new efforts that popped up almost daily. So much
so we couldn’t keep on top of it. Basically, there was not a school,
religious institution or business that did not get involved in some
way in this relief effort. Whether it was dropping dollar bills in cans
or donating an 18 wheeler, a driver and candy to get the massive quantity
of supplies down to Mississippi, we all did something. We are here when
we’re needed and obviously judging from today, simply when we
can. So it is in this spirit that I would like to graciously grant this
year’s Martha Drake, Volunteer of the Year Award to our community
that is so overflowing with a commitment to helping others in a crisis.
Named for our founder, The Martha Drake Volunteer of the Year Award
is given every year to the individual or individuals who provide exemplary
service to the community, act as a role model, and motivate others to
do volunteer work.
Congratulations residents of New Trier Township, I am proud to live here and work with you, Martha Drake winners all!