Thank you all for sharing your afternoon with us today. I hope you were
able to collect some new volunteer ideas from those wonderfully professional
social service administrators at the Fair. Aren't they great? Let's give
them all a hand for the work they do for so many people of need. We are
proud to be associated with them and will always do our best to help them
help others.
Here are this year’s official statistics according to the Corporation
for National & Community Service and the independent sector -- in
its 2007 Volunteering in America report, the national average value for
volunteering is equal to $18.77 an hour. Given this, in 2006, America's
volunteers performed the equivalent of more than $152 billion dollars
in service. What a country! In the New Trier Township our numbers and
responses to our events are up and the hits on our website for those seeking
volunteers reached over 5500 people. It is true, however, that more people
are doing episodic types of volunteer work versus weekly commitments -
You people are looking for ways to help, even though you claim you're
going to “sit on my hands” this year so I don't raise one
of them when volunteers are sought. You know you love it. Besides we all
need you - so put your hands back in your laps.
Before I go any further, I would like to offer my special thanks to North
Shore Community Bank for its generous donation to help defray our costs
today. I would also like to thank the board of the Volunteer Center for
its constant support of our work and for being good pied pipers out there
to get the word out. In particular, I am appreciative of our board president
Lea Murray - gentle Lea, always patient and kind and willing to step in
to help. Things get accomplished and we're all happy too - such a gift
she has! I am also grateful to Wendy Irwin and Sue Blomberg for chairing
the luncheon for the second year and for their committee members' help
- Dina Crnkovich and Tara Sadera. Next year's president Onnie Scheyer
has vast experience in board management and will lead us successfully
to more new programming and educational activities for the community on
the tremendous need out there. I look forward to working closely again
with you Onnie - Philly or not…
I cannot of course forget my office mate, Mel Schwartz, for his I.T. experience
and for keeping our database current and managing our Website and broadcast
emails. He is currently working hard to add the service 1-800 Volunteer
on our website and we hope to have it up and running by summer. This will
provide a new volunteer searching capability for those of you looking
for specific ways to help. And remember, if you are not receiving our
weekly volunteer opportunity emails, please see Mel and give him your
email - it is a blind copied, protected list that will keep you informed
about the latest opportunities from our agencies. Mel - could you wave
so people know who you are?
We also must recognize our Junior and High School board members for all
their work this year. Among other things, the Jr. Board worked with the
Rice Homes and the High School Board tried to Knock Illiteracy out of
our lives at its Dodgeball Tournament between all township high schools
on April 22. Could our Junior Board and High School Board members please
stand so we can see who's going to be taking over our jobs very soon?
VC Board members organized and supported many activities all year long
- Kaci Smith helped our Fall Service Learning Training, and Dina Crnkovich
and Sue Averill chaired Make A Difference Day, while Sue Blomberg helped
with Warming Hearts and Hands. Pat Pappageorge and Ann Ross hosted blanket
making for the homeless during Martin Luther King Jr. Day at Baha'i House
of Worship and Wendy Irwin, Molly Higgins, Kathy Heitmann, Julie Buerger,
Martha Gallo, Elena Saclarides and Onnie Scheyer guided the Junior and
High School boards. Those of you interested in joining our board, as you
can see -- we have lots for you to do. We do have some open spots for
next year, so we are entertaining new recruits - anyone interested is
welcome to come to an informational meeting next Tuesday morning. Let
us know if you'd like to check it out.
Each year when I sit down to write the descriptions for the Award recipients,
I hope to find the words that will inspire, motivate and show appreciation
for all that these individuals have contributed to society. But each year
I realize that no amount of rhetoric will touch you as much as the deeds
these people have executed. So, let's get on with it and celebrate our
recognition recipients for 2007.
ZENGELER CLEANERS
The Volunteer Center presents a corporate award every year for a local
business that has gone out of its way to provide support for those who
need it in the community. This year's recipient is Zengeler Cleaners.
For the last five years, Zengeler's has had a strong partnership with
the Glass Slipper Project, a Chicago non-profit, which collects new and
almost-new gowns, jewelry and handbags and gives them away during three
consecutive shopping Saturdays each spring, to thousands of high school
women who aren't able to buy their own outfits for Prom. The Volunteer
Center was proud to add the Glass Slipper Project as one of its recipient
agencies during our annual fall Make A Difference Day collection drive.
Zengelers has cleaned AND repaired gently used prom dresses for the last
five years and announced this past December that it will also store and
be the official north suburban collection point for the Glass Slipper
Project at all seven of its stores in Lake and Cook Counties in the coming
years. This includes dresses and accessories. Glass Slipper Project had
recently lost it's storage provider after 2006.
On the company's website, Tom Zengeler, President of the 150 year-old
family owned cleaner, commented that they are excited to expand their
“support for the Glass Slipper Project. He further states that their
work provides an extremely important service for at-risk teenagers at
a very vulnerable time in their lives. Finding a new storage facility
for donated dresses was a pressing need for them, one we are happy to
help them met. We look forward to another very successful collection drive
in 2007.” It's Prom season again folks. As your daughters hand you
their prom dresses vowing never to wear them again, please think of the
Glass Slipper Project and remember that the Volunteer Center will take
it off your hands this October during Make A Difference Day and Zengelers
will take it from there. Bob Zengeler is here to receive a well earned
recognition. Could you please come forward and receive your certificate?
HIGHCREST MIDDLE SCHOOL - Teresa Dobson, Jen Parilla, Joe Taylor
Speaking
of Make A Difference Day, it became clear to us this year that it was
time to publically recognize the efforts of Highcrest middle school to
involve an entire community in this one day collection drive for 10 social
service agencies. Jen Parilla, a 5th grade teacher there announced to
the parents that she really wanted to get the students involved in some
service activities and the ball began to roll when fellow parent, Mimi
Dray - now the current President of the Wilmette Village Wide PTO, gave
Kaci Smith, one of our board members and the room parent for Jen's class
a flyer about Make A Difference Day. Only Parilla's class participated
that first year.
The following year, Kaci presented the idea to the school administration
and Principal Cathy Rosen signed on and agreed to make this an all 5th
grade event as the three faculty members joined forces to make this a
full 5th grade effort. Teresa Dobson, Jen Parilla and Joe Taylor as point
person for the staff, guided their fellow faculty through this project
and helped those very valuable PTO moms organize the volunteers to collect
and categorize the goods and load an ENTIRE gymnasium packed FULL of items
in the vans for drop-off on Make A Difference Day. Every single 5th grade
class in the school collected items as requested and the students themselves
were the ones who promoted the activity by handwriting flyers to distribute
to their neighbors, and then went back and collected their donations one
house at a time. By the time they were finished, nearly every block in
the village of Wilmette was covered and between 25 and 30 vans FULL of
clothes, food and toiletries were collected and donated to the agencies
represented at Make A Difference Day. PTO parents Mary Quirke and Mary
Beth Cyze organized the project for their fellow volunteer parents. The
past two years, Make A Difference Day has seen more gently used stuff
from Wilmette channeled into waiting needy hands than a Salvation Army
outpost.
All of us parents know that the demands placed on our faculty are huge,
and special projects, no matter how beneficial we perceive them to be,
aint gonna happen unless there's buy-in from the one who wields the chalk!
How lucky we are to live in a township where our teachers value and find
time for their students to experience the gift of giving of themselves.
Could Highcrest faculty members Jen Parilla and Teresa Dobson come forward
and receive your certificates? Joe Taylor could not be here today as he
is on maternity leave - his wife is about to deliver their new baby.
Kathy Dodd
- CURE - Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy
I like to think of this next story as a terrific metaphor (and you'll
later find out, a bad pun) for “giving it the old college try”.
Kathy Dodd is a North Shore mother of a daughter who is 8 years old and
has epilepsy. For the last seven years, Kathy has served on the board
of an organization called CURE - Citizens United for Research in Epilepsy.
But the story is not about her board involvement, while we applaud her
for that, it is her relationship with Northwestern that is so remarkable.
Every year Northwestern hosts a Dance Marathon that the whole campus rallies
around as the proceeds - which are hundreds of thousands of dollars are
given to one selected charitable cause each year. This coveted selection
is a grueling process of verbal and written proposals that Kathy Dodd
decided she would pursue for her Epilepsy Research. She submitted and
presented her first proposal four years ago, and was rejected. Undaunted,
she rewrote it, tackled the sell from a different approach and was rejected
the next year. She did this a total of four times, each year a new proposal
and new approach, seeking input from her fellow board members until finally
- they signed on with CURE. Understand that each proposal involves not
only the emotional plea for the cause, but also what impact the money
will have, as well as how the recipient would promote it to the university
students so they would feel the same passion and fundraise as well for
the cause and involve their fellow students in the dance marathon. The
work did not end once Northwestern agreed that the Dance Marathon proceeds
would for 2006 would go toward her cause. She would spend the next six
months, 10 - 15 hours a week organizing planning sessions and giving speeches
on campus to highlight the need. The students organize the dance marathon,
but the pressure is on the selected charity to get them there. Because
of her passion, she was able to raise huge awareness on the campus, and
the dance marathon for her cause signed up over 600 dancers grossed over
$700,000 - the most ever raised by any dance marathon at the school. The
Campus had indeed rallied behind her cause. She brought in kids who were
living with epilepsy to talk to the students, and of course shared her
own personal story of her daughter.
Kathy is also a weekly volunteer at Misericordia and is currently helping
them in their bakery. She is sharing her experience as a systems implementation
manager for Hewitt to help streamline the processing in their bakery and
is consulting with them on how to improve their packaging.
Kathy, please come get your certificate of recognition for your tremendous
achievements.
KWBA -- GRIFFStrong Home-Run Derby
On a Sunday afternoon in April of 2005, Dan Griffin, a Junior at Illinois
State was on his way to a Cubs game when he was in a car accident which
resulted in his paralysis from the waist down. Dan, or “Griff”
as he is known, was one of three coaches to a KWBA (Kenilworth-Winnetka-Northfield)
travel baseball team of middle school students. Griff was the lead coach
and with his close buddies, Greg Dorka and George Smith, formed a strong
trio of coaching for the boys. According to parent team managers Donna
Voges and Ann Smith, Griff taught the boys to “have heart”
in baseball as well as in life. He fostered much more than batting and
pitching techniques in these boys' worlds.
Knowing their good friend was facing astronomical medical bills, Dorka
and Smith started the GRIFFStrong Foundation and held fundraising events
to lessen the bills. During the summer of 2005, the KWBA team was on a
bus headed for a game in Iowa, when some of the moms and the boys noticed
their two young coaches wearing the GRIFFStrong T-shirts and decided they
would also support the foundation. They contacted the 2004 team members
who knew GRIFF best and had been searching for a way to help Dan. Together,
with the endorsement and underwriting of the KWBA organization, headed
by Larry Gordon, they hosted the first ever KWBA-GRIFFStrong Homerun Derby
and Baseball Carnival. The energy and efforts by these boys was amazing,
and let's not forget the parents - we all know behind every great kid
is an even greater parent, right? Well, certainly in this case it was
true…They enlisted the support of the KWBA board, the KWBA email
system and NTHS baseball team pitchers, the Winnetka Park District, the
Strike Zone Baseball Academy and the Chicago Cubs. Through power emails,
flyers and word-of-mouth they generated a lot of enthusiasm from the boys
in the KWBA. They sold wrist bands, raffle tickets and prizes, and the
New Trier Varsity baseball team even came out and shagged balls to these
awestruck young boys. The derby included hitting contests, dunk tanks,
pick-off games and various other events. In the end, in over 2 hours,
they had raised $13,000. This is truly a pay it forward story. The boys
wanted to give back to their beloved role model.
Ironically, Dan Griffin had a dream to become a high school history teacher
so he could share with kids the lessons he learned from his teachers and
coaches. Not to be daunted by his new physical limitations, Dan decided
he would do his best to graduate on time and begin his teaching career.
He had to undergo extensive therapy at a Rehab Center and while still
in his wheelchair, he did graduate last Spring and is currently teaching
history at Lincoln Middle School in Mt. Prospect - And thanks to the hearts
and determination of those he affected in his young life he had met his
goal, and young boys learned what it really meant to hit one out of the
park… Could all the KWBA boys who helped with the GRIFFStrong Homerun
Derby, please come up here and accept our appreciation for your kindness
and energy? 13 of the original 18 are here with us today. As the boys
come forward I'll read the names of the KWBA players involved. They are,
Jack Wascher, Robert Voges, Joe Madigan, Brantner Jones, Rajiv Chopra,
Christopher Paik, Kevin Coquilette, Michael Clark, Danny Smith, Cal Handelman,
Charlie Moore, Mick Parks, Thomas Merriman, Greg Smart, Jimmy Slovitt,
Scott Kennedy, Tim Kinsella, and Andrew Skolnick. Would the Moms who are
here and were involved please stand? Ann Smith, Donna Voges, Kathy Handelman,
Suzy Parks, Susan Kennedy Reichers, Carrie Smart, Sally Jones, Sally Wascher,
Eileen Madigan and Cristina Rajiv. Congratulations for your generosity
and your batting averages with your kids.
KRISTINE SMITH – MARTHA DRAKE AWARD - VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR
Think back to your junior year in high school -- or if that's too far
back, think about your own kids or your friend's kids who have been through
the junior year. Frequently labeled as one of the most pressure-ridden
years of a young person's high school career, most kids spend most of
their time studying, writing junior themes, dealing with obnoxious friends
or parents and basically just keeping their heads above water. That's
why this next recipient is so remarkable. When Kristine Smith was a Junior
in high school, she undertook a project of her own volition that raised
nearly $25,000 for the awareness of Juvenile Diabetes. Kristine's sister
Jenna, four years younger than her and coincidentally on our Junior Board,
had juvenile diabetes and Kristine wanted to help educate others about
the disease.
So, after hearing about a housewalk her mother Cheryl had attended, she
wondered why she couldn't plan one on her own, charge admission and give
the proceeds to the Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation. She contacted
her neighbors on her street in Wilmette, and asked them if they wanted
to participate. Soon, the Chestnut Avenue Housewalk for JDRF, featuring
seven homes, was born. It took her a year to plan, and she assigned family
members and neighborhood kids different jobs to accomplish the task. According
to her Mom, working under Kristine was a quite a responsibility. Says
Mom, she is quite a tough taskmaster. “Have you gotten your volunteers
yet? Do they know what they are supposed to be doing Mom?” I think
you'll need more people. Cheryl knew she wasn't allowed to take her job
lightly.
Kristine promoted and marketed the walk through email lists of her friends'
moms, flyers around town, appeared in a feature in Pioneer Press and spoke
to Rotary about her event. Tickets were sold and literature about Juvenile
Diabetes was prepared and shared at the last house in the walk - the Smiths'.
She organized refreshments for the event attendees, and she got a local
florist to donate flowers in each of the homes. A booklet was prepared
with the history of each of the homes and over 60 volunteers helped pull
it all together. The day of the walk, over 400 people came and learned
how deep affection and understanding can run in a family.
Named for our founder, the Martha Drake Volunteer of the Year Award is
given to the individual who has stepped beyond his or her comfort zone
to act as a role model, motivate others to volunteer and provide much
needed support to those in need. Kristine Smith embodies this as a young
person who ventured into new territory to help people who live with this
disease. Her selfless and mature acts as a young 16 year old have earned
her this distinction.
She will be entering USC this Fall, studying International Relations with
an Emphasis on Global Business. Help me send her off with this celebration
of her generosity. Congratulations Kristine, our 2007 Volunteer of the
Year. Kristine could you come up here and Jenna could you please join
your sister up here?And that, ladies and gentlemen, is all SHE wrote…Have
a wonderful afternoon. Get out there and spread the importance of volunteerism
- thank you!
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