Lorri Milewski has spent her last 10 summers making sure children don`t get bored while on vacation from school.
As a day-camp leader for the Midlothian Park District, she has two goals: ”No. 1 is having fun-having a great time and keeping safe. No. 2 is giving them a chance to play with kids their own age and having activities they enjoy.”
On a typical day, she may officiate at games, teach crafts, lead nature hikes, organize field trips, break up arguments, or encourage a shy child to take part in the activities.
Heather Bearden, 9, says she was nervous when her mother decided to send her to the camp. ”I didn`t know anybody. Lorri made me feel comfortable. I didn`t know how to play softball,” and Milewski encouraged her, she says.
”She doesn`t let us just sit around and do nothing,” says Jenny Feuerborn, 12, who is attending for her second year. ”She comes up with ideas and always thinks of something to do.”
Feuerborn`s 8-year-old sister, Jacline, and 11-year-old brother, Tim, also attend. They say their favorite activity was a bus trip to a water park. They also like the camp`s social atmosphere, they say. ”Even if you don`t know kids, you make friends with them,” Jenny says.
Other children agree the camp is fun. Peaches Bonnema, 9, says her mother suggested the camp. ”I was going to a baby-sitter, and it wasn`t any fun,”
she says. ”It`s much funner” here, she says.
Milewski, 30, began working in day-camp programs during college to earn money between semesters.
”I always liked kids, and I thought, `What a great way to spend the summer,` ” she says. A decade later, her enthusiasm remains high.
”Lorri`s a very enthusiastic employee,” says Patricia Yeager, park director. ”She loves what she does, and that shows in her work and the way she deals with the children.”
Milewski grew up in Chicago`s Roseland neighborhood on the Far South Side and Riverdale, and now lives in Hegewisch, on Chicago`s Far Southeast Side. She received an associate`s degree in science in 1982 from Thornton Community College (now known as South Suburban College) in South Holland and a bachelor`s degree in physical education in 1985 from Chicago State University. During the school year, Milewski teaches physical education and computers at Jesus Our Brother Elementary School, 8401 S. Saginaw Ave., Chicago, where she has taught for three years.
Before she came to the Midlothian Park District, she had worked four years coordinating Alsip`s day-camp program and then worked one summer starting a summer day-camp program at Jesus Our Brother School. The program at the school ran into difficulties and was dropped when Milewski left after the first year. Even so, Milewski enjoyed the challenge of starting a program and offering the service to children from the school and surrounding neighborhood. ”It was great to know I did it,” she says.
In her jobs as a physical education teacher and day-camp leader, Milewski is able to combine her love of sports with her desire to teach.
”By 6th grade, I knew I wanted to be a teacher,” she says. But it wasn`t until high school that shefound her subject. ”I never had gym, being in a Catholic grade school” that did not have facilities for physical education classes, she says.
”In high school, I fell in love with it. I was a tomboy at heart, but I didn`t know how to play organized games.”
At Seton Catholic High School, now known as Seton Academy, in South Holland, she learned the rules for different sports and acquired the skills to play various games. She also learned how to share and the importance of cooperation, which are valuable lessons to be learned from sports, she says.
Another passion, which began as a hobby, is computers. She became hooked when she mentioned to a friend that she was buying a typewriter, and he talked her into getting a computer instead.
By simply playing around with it, she eventually gained the expertise to start a business teaching computer skills to children and adults. Her course is offered through the park district.
Milewski brings in her six computers, sets them up and lets her students work with them. ”You learn by doing,” she says.
Many of her students are older than 50 and ”just want to learn it.”
They learn practical skills such as balancing a checkbook, working out a budget or making a banner. The class reduces their fear of computers, Milewski says. ”They learn that they can do it.”
Her biggest thrill, she says, is volunteering to help people who compete in the Special Olympics, for people with disabilities. Yeager, her supervisor, got her interested in helping, and in June they attended the summer games in Normal, Ill.
”I go as her sidekick,” Milewski says with a laugh. She does whatever is needed, whether it`s lining up players for the softball team, timing races or keeping score. ”Once you do it, you can`t stop” volunteering, she says.
The participants` determination is an inspiration, she says. She adds that she would love to take these special children to her regular gym class to show her students what they can do, and say, ”Yes, you can do it.”
”It`s so frustrating when you have a kid who is perfect in every way who just won`t try,” she adds.
Milewski, who is single, likes to bowl and play softball, and she teaches T-ball, basketball, soccer, volleyball and floor hockey during the year for the Midlothian Park District.
The day-camp program provides activities for children age 6 to 12. Enrollment has grown to 120 this year from 63 in 1991. Milewski runs the site at Bremen Heights Park, next to the park district building, 14500 Kostner Ave., where 105 children attend. This year the district added a second site, in Memorial Park, at 145 Street and Sawyer Avenue, where 15 campers are enrolled.
Milewski says one reason for the drastic enrollment increase is the cancellation of summer school in the school district this year because of funding problems.
Another, she says, is her reputation as an effective camp leader. ”I have a good following of parents,” she says with a smile.
