2008 Volunteer Centeer Recognition Luncheon

Sponsored by

Complete Luncheon Remarks

Barb Tubekis, Executive Director

Thank you Onnie, and thank you Betsy for sharing the terrific work of The Off the Street Club. We’re thrilled you joined us today and educated us about their needs. I’m also personally happy to see you again after 20 years when our kids were in Nursery School together and now they’re in college – glad we were able to give them a good start in early childhood. Thanks also to all of you for being here and in particular our 40 agency representatives who were represented at the Fair.
I am most appreciative of our Board of Directors and Linda and Lea and their luncheon committee for all their hard work and for North Shore Community Bank for its generous sponsorship of the luncheon. I must also on a personal level thank Onnie Scheyer for her leadership as board president this year. I have been so fortunate to work for exceptional presidents over the years and Onnie has been unflappable, decent, informed and careful with all her leadership. Her analysis of the decisions we have to make are always wisely considered. It has been an honor working with you Onnie, and I look forward to many more years together. I also need to recognize my part time office companion Mel Schwartz, who manages our data and website. I am thankful Mel is here to keep all our information in line. Thanks so much Mel.
Today’s luncheon is highlighted as Celebrating Volunteerism and Education. Personally I feel each of those issues is enhanced by the other. If we don’t open our minds and souls to an awareness of the social service needs around us, we are not in a position to make our marks and improve the human condition. So today we celebrate our volunteers who have learned about the needs in our communities and our world and acted on them, and we also celebrate those who are responsible for opening those doors in our minds and hearts so we can help. Without our educators and community organizers, we would be forever spinning in our own selfish needs.
So, let’s get on with this year’s award recipients. I hope you’ll be as impressed as we were on the selection committee.

Urban Initiatives

Since 2002, Former University of Iowa and Loyola high school soccer teammates and lifelong friends Daniel Isherwood and Jim Dower have been helping some of Chicago’s underserved kids bridge the achievement gap by founding and devoting themselves to Urban Initiatives, a before and after school soccer program in Chicago for 1st through 4th graders. It provides quality soccer instruction and nutrition education, in a disciplined and structured environment, with coordinated communication between teachers, parents and coaches. They recognize that they need total teamwork to help these kids.

The Volunteer Center learned about Urban Initiatives through some of our board members whose children play on the local Wilmette Wings soccer team and are coached by Dan and Jim. They discovered these two young men who were teaching in the now closed Cabrini Green Byrd school, and were simultaneously working with at risk Chicago youth who developed a league of their own. They started with 16 young soccer players, buying them nutritious snacks with their own money because the kids were showing up hungry. Today they and their volunteers work with over 180 students in six inner city schools, and the program continues to grow. They enlist support from the students’ teachers by making the kids sign a work to play agreement that ensures the students not only do their class work, but improve in their studies. The teachers make sure the students are completing their classroom studies or they are not able to participate in the soccer program. These two young men have brought in professional nutritionists to talk with the kids about how taking care of yourself can translate into success, and in this case, Dan and Jim are linking the healthy body to the healthy mind for achievement in the classroom.

According to Dan, “There was never a driving force to create a soccer prodigy from this program. The idea was to get these kids to buy into the classroom. We wanted them to realize that education was their passport to success.” To Jim’s surprise, he said “I never thought they would love it so much and it would grow into this. But I knew if Ish and I went down there and did something with these kids, it was going to be a benefit.

Dan and Jim have enlisted the help of residents on the North Shore to develop the program with volunteers and benefits to keep it strong. A Junior Volunteer Board has been created to connect our youth with those in the city, and involves some of our local kids John Irwin, Sam Edelstein, Chris Ritter and Rife.
As Urban Initiatives continues to grow, it has become a full community effort, using professionals in the city, local university and high schools, community and non profit partnerships to help maintain the program as well.

According to information on their website, these two believe empowering children at a young age with a “can-do” spirit and solid work ethic will provide them with the values and ambition necessary to become productive members of society – just like their founders – Dan Isherwood and Jim Dower.

.Steve Adams

At some point in all our lives we will have the misfortune – or maybe we should look at it as the honor -- of attending a funeral or memorial service of a dear friend or family member who has so transformed a community you feel privileged to have known him or her. A year ago last June, I did have that honor, as did many of you here today, of attending the memorial service of this next outstanding volunteer recipient, Steve Adams from Winnetka. What was most striking about his memorial service, aside from the deep affection of Steve shared by the hundreds of people who had wedged themselves into the church and were literally overflowing out the door into the churchyard, was the variety of activities and experiences those in attendance had with Steve. And what is most notable is that his impact continues to resonate with the people and organizations he touched.

Former Volunteer Center and Winnetka Alliance Board President Linda Ball called Steve a “true civic icon”. Retiring as a top executive with Jewel Companies at an early age to be a stay at home dad for his children Hannah and Gerritt, Steve immersed himself in volunteer work in the community. He was the “go to guy” you could count on to solve everything from computer problems to providing important organizational advice. The consummate mentor to all, Steve served on numerous boards in both educational and civic settings. In addition to serving on the school board and as its president, he most notably was one of the founding board members of the Winnetka Alliance for Early Childhood. Steve provided early counsel for its establishment and continued volunteering for the organization for 18 years as its treasurer and advisor, writing and designing their newsletters and establishing and maintaining their website -- at a time when many of us in the non profit sector only dreamt of someday flying around in cyberspace – I was still marveling at the benefits of a FAX machine when the alliance website went up.

He also worked with the Winnetka Historical Society to relocate their headquarters and the Village’s Schmidt-Burnham log cabin built in 1837, to Crow Island Woods so that it could become a rich educational setting to the area grade schools and the community at large.

Tackling his volunteer jobs with wit and an occasional corny joke, Steve refused to procrastinate. As I told his wife Abby, even in death, he is teaching us. The Volunteer Center planned to give Steve recognition at our luncheon last year, but we decided to wait until 2008, to build on an Education theme this year. What incredible irony. The Volunteer Center is not alone in its recognition of Steve’s impact. Because of his many volunteer jobs, the Winnetka Rotary has created the Steve Adams Young Citizens Award to recognize youth who participate in service projects that positively impact our local, national or international communities, and the first will be granted this May.

Virtually every organization with which Steve was a member still has his mark on it. He couldn’t belong without contributing and ultimately having an impact on its mission and its constituents. So, it is with great pride that we ask Abby to come up and receive this posthumous award for Steve Adams -- our civic icon, our mentor, our dear, dear friend.

Ceci Gigiolio and Washburne 8th graders

We’ve all heard the phrase, “a teachable moment” when working with students or our own children. Something presents itself that is either a dilemma or a discovery, and it needs to be explored further by a teacher or an adult. Well, this is exactly what happened in Ceci Gigiolio’s 8th grade class at Washburne last year, and she seized it and what unfolded was a model of pure service learning.

On Martin Luther King Day in January 2007, the Interfaith Housing Center of the Northern Suburbs sponsored a panel discussion on Martin Luther King Jr. for the community. Ceci told her students she would give them extra credit if they attended the event. Many of the students took her up on it and came back to class full of information they shared with their classmates. One of their discoveries was that Martin Luther King had actually spoken on the Village Green about Fair housing and discrimination in 1965. The students were awestruck by this and wondered why this wasn’t common knowledge in our community – they naturally thought there was a conspiracy of some sort to keep it quiet. Ceci guided them through a discussion on civil rights and one topic led to another and the students decided there should be a permanent monument on the Village Green where he spoke, commemorating the event.

So their teacher challenged them to explore this further with our local government. These determined 8th graders contacted the Village officials, the Winnetka Historical Society and discovered that there was an official deed that prevented any individual or group from building or placing anything new and permanent on the Green.
Since they had been empowered to identify and pursue their cause, these kids were now on a mission to get an exemption from this rule and gain approval from the village to put some kind of memorial on the Green. A total of 50 people attended a Village meeting, students and parents alike, and 20 students shared their positions with the council. The council invited them to come back to a study session and if the students could show community support for this, it might sway them. They indeed showed major public approval with their signed petitions stating a monument should be allowed, and addressed the Village Council with their findings. The Council approved it that night.

Now they had to research the type and costs of a plaque and installing it, and they learned that it was going to cost a staggering $30,000 to complete this project. Still not daunted, they raised over $18,000 on their own, and the project was underway. They were able to get much of the design work donated by a local resident, and a construction firm helped as well. The plaque was installed on the Southwest corner of the green and a special ceremony was held last summer on the green to dedicate the new addition to the Village. The students spoke and reflected on their successful contribution to their community. At the core of all of this was a teacher that guided and allowed the students to learn the hard way some civic lessons and how community government works. This is when service learning is at its best. When it supports what the student is learning in the classroom, when he or she is passionate about something that has come alive rather than just reading about it. You can bet this will not be forgotten.

Would Ceci Gigiolio come up here and bring some of her students who are here today who represent her very ambitious 8th grade students. Please come up --Julie Rubin, Ryan Lucas, Brandon Waldon, Maddie Beyl, Tara Boyle, Lauren Cannon and Mel Cornelo.

Sandi Johnson

Volunteerism and Education should be relevant in all phases of our lives. It seems for many of us, the older we get, the younger we get – we want to play and discover more about the world and the people in it (some of us like to play more than others, right Mom?). Thankfully, the North Shore has had Sandi Johnson working with the North Shore Senior Center since 1978. She recently announced she will be retiring soon, and we felt it important to recognize the impact Sandi has had on our senior community and its ability to engage over 700 volunteers last year alone – senior citizens in acts of service. Last year, North Shore Senior Center volunteers contributed more than 42,000 hours of time which saved their organization close to $800,000. Sandi started as a Licensed Clinical Social Worker at the Senior Center and was named Executive Director in 1992. She oversees a board of about 40 people from 23 communities and works closely with the many many committees of the Senior Center. Sandi has been active in scores of professional and community organizations in the Chicago area.

This Spring Sandi received the National Institute of Senior Centers Founders’ Award. This prestigious award was given to her at the National Council on Aging/American Society of Aging National Conference in March. It was the depth of her contributions that have led to the enormous growth of the Senior Center and its programming for Seniors. The Senior Center started in 1956 in the Winnetka Community House, and in the early 1990’s Sandi oversaw the move to the New Trier Northfield campus which enabled them to expand programming, but it wasn’t until the high school needed the space again, that the opportunity for real growth was realized. So, in 2000, thanks to the careful strategic planning of Sandi, the Senior Center moved to its current spectacular site in the renovated warehouse in Northfield. Here, they are able to house and run their own Fitness Center, computer classes, and a wide range of programming and services for continuing education, entertainment and well being of senior citizens – which by the way includes people who are 50 and over? In 2002 Sandi oversaw another capital campaign that enabled them to build the current Alzheimer’s House of Welcome site on the Senior Center campus. Sandi started the House of Welcome in 1983, which appreciates heavily the volunteers who come in and help.

Sandi has encouraged her staff to participate in regional and national professional development programs and networking. Because of this, new ideas are constantly being implemented, and in 1995, the North Shore Senior Center was one of the first senior centers in Illinois to host a SeniorNet computer learning site. In addition to onsight computer classes – some of which are taught by our own Mel Schwartz, our data and web manager. Senior Center computer volunteers now go out and teach residents of senior residential facilities how to use computers.

As Executive Director of the North Shore Senior Center, Sandi has recognized the need to collaborate with other senior centers. This is an important benefit to all. Congratulations Sandi, for all you’ve done for these valuable individuals and volunteers in our community.

HIGH SCHOOL SERVICE AND SERVICE LEARNING EFFORTS

It is only fitting as this is an educational theme today to recognize the tremendous efforts by our local high schools to engage their students in important volunteer and service learning activities. Loyola, New Trier and North Shore Country day are all to be commended for their considerable achievements in this endeavor. Each of these schools recognize the life altering affect that developing a passion for and helping to achieve solutions to challenges in our sometimes harsh world can have.

North Shore Country Day School

Upper School Service Coordinator Drea Gallaga at North Shore Country Day has been a strong advocate for service infused in the curriculum for several years now. After she received intensive training on Service Learning herself, she has obtained summer grants to personally train the staff at North Shore to properly utilize the service learning model in the classroom. She has taught seven faculty to date and is currently designing a one day workshop so she can more easily train the rest of the staff. She has approached it from several angles and with several disciplines. Faculty who teach French, Spanish, Social Studies, English and Art have all begun to use service learning in their classes.

The French classes have been studying Haiti and as a result, the students decided to make connections with a Haitian community in Chicago and are in the process of researching their needs.

The Spanish classes are executing a research project about people of Latin descent in the North Shore Community. The teacher herself is Spanish and helped the students set up interviews with Hispanics who reside in the community to understand their immigrant experience. The students then shared their research and findings with the whole school.

In the Social Studies, the teacher replaced a mock war tribunal with a service –learning fair, where the students worked in groups to delve into an issue of global significance like AIDS or small arms trade, which includes the history and the politics of it and what NGO and religious responses have been. They then have to take action to ameliorate the issue, whether it’s financial, or advocacy or legislative.

The Art teacher is connecting the students with dementia patients by executing a project called “memories in the making”, which the students work with the patients to paint and draw their memories when they are not able to articulate them anymore.

An English teacher helped her students last year make a connection to a fledgling school in Tanzania inspired by their reading Greg Mortenson’s Three Cups of Tea, and a curricular connection around the theme of literacy. Because of their project, Mortenson is actually coming to the school to speak to them and 15 seniors are going to Tanzania for their senior service to work on the school for which they have raised tens of thousands of dollars.

In addition to the service learning in the curriculum, at the end of their final semester at North Shore Country Day, seniors must do a senior service project that they design themselves. This is a two week, 30 hours a week inservice volunteering in a not for profit agency. The students research and select the agency they will assist and then report their experience to an assembly of peers and parents. Students work in all service disciplines, from those with disabilities to the homeless and senior centers.
Drea has taken the lead in service for her school and is pleased that both the lower and middle schools are also looking to place service in the curriculum. Drea Gallaga, could you please accept this certificate for your commitment to bringing service learning to North Shore Country Day School.

Loyola Academy

Loyola has long had a commitment to service and its “Life - Be in It” program has been an important component. Sponsored by their Campus Ministry, it is a voluntary extracurricular program that enables students to participate in ongoing and episodic volunteer efforts after school and on weekends throughout the school year. The students participate in such service programs as tutoring at an elementary school in the city, working in one of 4 soup kitchens, helping in Day Care facilities for low income families, assisting seniors in residential homes, and working with those with disabilities. One of their programs, the ICRE is a joint volunteer effort with New Trier. Their Life Be In It program is a very successful outreach effort that connects hundreds of students with service needs.
For those who cannot participate in service after school and weekends, Loyola has expanded its summer Service Program to include over 20 trips ranging from helping in Chicago to Peru.

Scholarships are available for those students who need funding to travel over the summer. Students may volunteer one week in West Virginia in a program called loaves and fishes where the kids totally plan, organize and execute the summer camp for the kids who are there.

There are also six, six week habitat building projects in Kentucky from which the students can choose to participate, as well as three trips to South Dakota and Appalachia. They can also help out in Chicago at the Amate House with City Year volunteers and more tutoring in inner city programs.

They have expanded their summer volunteer programs to international efforts to include Guatemala doing hard labor working on infrastructure and road work, Los Ninos – Tijuana, building and construction and Peru, a total immersion in the culture living with a family and volunteering in the community.

This impressive list is being utilized by approximately 200 kids in the Junior Class every summer. Loyola has worked hard to offer a menu of valuable experiences for their students that are sure to have an impact on those who fully participate. It is mind boggling how all these projects are staffed and coordinated.

New Trier High School

The Volunteer Center has been working with New Trier to place Service Learning in the curriculum in various formats over the last eight years. First with Nic Zerebny and Tim Hayes at the Northfield campus under Principal Jan Borja to offer all freshmen a choice of a one day project in a program called Que Pasla, then a full year via the freshman advisories to select and execute an advisory service project, with the goal of some day -- faculty incorporating it into their classroom lesson plans. New Trier offered several trainings on service learning for faculty and for the past two years the Service Learning Coordinator, Mitch Jones, has been working with teachers to develop service and experiential projects as an integral part of their curriculum. He has worked with the faculty to train them on service learning techniques and used grants to help coordinate some projects.

Many of the classes were already doing some service learning in the sciences and some social studies, but the Northfield campus’ Social Studies teachers have incorporated service learning across all levels, via the Global Citizenship Project. Each social studies teacher is able to structure his or her service in the way that best suits the unique classroom needs. The students are to independently identify and research an area of global need and design and execute their own projects from beginning to end, then present their work in a unique way. Meg Beeler, New Trier Northfield Social Studies Coordinator sent me copies of some of the projects the kids have designed, and I was amazed at the intensity of these projects. Over the last two years, some of the projects became all school days that the social studies department sponsored. One was Africa Awareness Day, which involved viewing the film Hotel Rwanda, a presentation by a teenager who lived through the genocide in Rwanda, an overview of the Angola Project, additional presentations about the current genocide in Sudan and the empowerment of African women, and samplings of African culture. Each of the experiences were interactive, and solicited active engagement opportunities for the students. The day concluded with an opportunity to Take a Stand against genocide in an event that was designed by a steering committee of students.

The Northfield campus World History teachers use some version of either Helping Hands or Global Citizenship to engage the students in a service activity that supports their research. After the students have fully availed themselves to as much knowledge as possible about their topic, they prepare to take action of some sort, for instance, make contact with an official or even invite him or her to come and speak to the class as one student has done by bringing Mark Kirk to come to campus to discuss Darfur with the students. They are not encouraged to do fundraising projects with this assignment, which is our usual response to solving a problem. Instead, they bring the knowledge to others by action. As a result of this service learning initiative by the school, a new Global Awareness extracurricular club has started on campus. There are so many layers that are possible when we arm our students with the ability to discover through activity.

Essentially, approximately 800 students are engaging in service learning activities that will forever ingrain their classroom studies in their minds. Each will have made a difference on some level. Congratulations. I would appreciate it if the New Trier personnel who are here today would stand. We appreciate the school administrators and faculty who joined us today. Now would Meg Beeler, Northfield campus Social Studies Coordinator and Mitch Jones, Service Learning Coordinator for New Trier come up here and accept your certificate?

MARTHA DRAKE VOLUNTEER OF THE YEAR AWARD

Elissa Poorman

Every year, the Volunteer Center bestows the Volunteer of the Year Award, named after its founder, Martha Drake, to the volunteer who has worked unselfishly to the service of others. This person is also to be a role model, and works tirelessly to engage more people in volunteer service. This year’s award goes to Elissa Poorman of Wilmette – a young woman who is dedicating her life to the service of those in need. The Volunteer Center was first introduced to Elissa when she was in eighth grade and was a very active member of Wilmette Junior High’s Youth Connections after school service club. She spoke passionately at our recognition event ten years ago, and I think all of us knew something awesome was going to emanate from her someday.

Well, here we are, ten years later, and Elissa has gone on to achieve remarkable volunteer experiences for the world health community. After graduating from high school, Elissa attended Harvard and received cum laude, a bachelor in History of Science with her thesis on leper colonies in Brazil receiving the Kenneth Maxwell prize for best thesis on Brazil. She was a project coordinator in a former leper colony in Brazil to preserve the town’s history through historical preservation via photos and interviews of those who lived there to determine the origins of leprosy isolation. Also while at Harvard she led an after school health and fitness program twice a week called Project Health Girls’ Fitness and Nutrition Program, for girls who were obese or were at risk for obesity, at the same time coordinating the ideas of volunteers, parents and participants to create a dynamic and relevant program for the community.

She was a doctor’s aide in Fulda Hospital in Germany where she assisted and shadowed doctors in the pediatric ward and translated for patients who spoke English or Spanish, but no German. Before that she was an ESL teacher in Harvard Chinatown and taught intermediate grammar and pronunciation of English to Chinese immigrants once a week and volunteered 10 hours per week as a social worker in Boston Medical Center’s Maternity ward. She conducted cases with Spanish-only clients and translated service information.

Now, I have to share this with you. I was listing all the accomplishments Elissa made while she was at Harvard to my husband this morning, and all he could say was, “when did she have time for all that?” We’ve got two in college right now and we hope they’re just turning their papers in on time!
Elissa is currently a study coordinator of a multi-site anthropological study on culture medicine and health disparities at Harvard Medical School and is currently interviewing across the country for medical programs. Elissa wrote me that her goal is to incorporate her research about how the medical system can better respond to under-served populations in the practice of social justice.

I’m sure this is not the last we’ll be hearing of Elissa. Please join me in congratulating Elissa Poorman as the 2008 Martha Drake Volunteer of the Year. Elissa?

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So there you have it. I’d like to leave you today with the words by Nelson Mandela that were printed on our invitation to this year’s recognition event:
“Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
Think about it. This is one weapon you should use as often as possible. Thanks for coming.