It is Tuesday, Nov. 23. By day’s end, almost 39,000 shoppers will ring up sales at Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee. Seven new babies will make their debut at Northwest Community Hospital in Arlington Heights, 11 at Sherman Hospital in Elgin.
Gray skies and chilly 30-degree temperatures demand parkas and bring visions of the nasty winter weather that threatens in the months ahead.
Yet clouds and even nightful fail to darken one kind of brightness that exists throughout the northwest suburbs-the kind generated by volunteers.
On this day, Tempo Northwest tracked just a few of the unsung heroes whose generosity of spirit and dedication year-round make a difference in the lives of thousands. In a salute to their valiant efforts, we offer a glimpse at their work during just one 24-hour period:
– 6:45 a.m. Presbyterian Church of Palatine:
In the parking lot behind the church, several of the 25 people who have spent the evening sleeping on pads laid out on the tile floor of the church’s basement warm up their car engines and scrape frost off their windshields. Others drift away on foot, walking west on Palatine Road toward the Community Center, the train station or perhaps the library, the regular daytime havens for these folks who have nowhere to call home.
Back inside, volunteer Brian, an attorney from Palatine, is already wide awake, having arrived at the church at 3 a.m.
Every Tuesday morning from October through April for the last three years, Brian has risen early to volunteer for the Public Action to Deliver Shelter (PADS) program housed in the basement of this Palatine church. What’s more, as site director for this location, he also works the 6:30 to 8:30 shift the evening before to help register guests, serve them dinner and assign pads for them to sleep on.
At this moment, though, he’s busy stacking the sleeping pads against the wall and stuffing the used linens into large plastic bags that will be picked up by other volunteers, then washed and returned for next week.
But just as Brian is about to finish his task, a male guest returns saying, “I think I left my wool hat here.” With that, he immediately begins rummaging through the bags of linens Brian has just packed and dumping them on the tile floor.
“Sorry, I don’t think so,” says Brian, adding, “but could you now please help me clean these up?” The guest ignores his request, saying he’s late for work and walks out the door.
“All in a day’s work,” jests Brian, shrugging. “But that is what this is all about, helping people who really need it. These obviously are people who don’t have families or anyone else to turn to.”
Also assisting this morning are Palatine residents Doug, the owner of a food service business; Del, a member of the clergy; and Ralph, a welder. They are all busy in the kitchen, mopping the floors, putting away boxes of Cheerios and wiping down counters.
When they are done taking out the bags and bags of garbage, cleaning the toilets and restroom floors and sinks and stacking up the long tables where breakfast was served just a half-hour before, they will all go home, shower and head for their 9-to-5 jobs.
These are definitely unglamorous tasks, and you have to be one of the committed to do them. Most people, including Doug’s wife, would find it hard to believe if “they saw me cleaning a kitchen,” he laughs. “It’s a rotten job, but someone has to do it to make this program work. So I lose a couple hours of sleep, it is no big deal. I still get to work on time.”
– 9:30 a.m. FISH of McHenry Inc. (The Friends In Service Here Food Pantry) in McHenry:
The mood in the basement pantry seems frantic, as more than 35 people wait in line. They have filled out lists of grocery and household items that they need, the extras that food stamps just can’t cover: toilet paper, Children’s Tylenol, toothbrushes, as well as milk, canned vegetables, bread and butter. Maybe, if they are lucky, even a turkey for the holidays.
Barb Pierce, a spunky volunteer from McHenry and president of this food pantry, orchestrates the activities of a group of about 10 volunteers. All are busy filling orders, packing boxes and trying to send hungry patrons on their way as quickly as possible.
Started more than 20 years ago to help feed needy families and provide them with household staples, the pantry is open three days a week-Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. And Pierce and a corps of 60 to 65 volunteers are as dependable as the food and household essential donations from local schools, churches and businesses.
“Honestly, there is nothing like watching the generosity of the people in this community who give so much to make sure there is food here,” Pierce says. “Earlier this morning, we had a group of high school students bring in four truckloads of canned goods they’d collected through a food drive.”
– 11 a.m. Park Place Senior Center in Arlington Heights:
When Agnes Chaires, who is in her 80s, walked into Park Place Senior Center a year ago to inquire about swimming programs for seniors, she walked out with a full-time job-as a volunteer, that is.
So impressed was she by the spirit of family and camaraderie that she found here, Chaires signed up for a permanent stint as an “Ask Me Ambassador,” meeting and greeting the more than 400 seniors who come here each day to exercise, socialize, read, create and carve new lives for themselves in their retirement.
Today, as she is most weekdays, Chaires is posted at the front desk, greeting by name most of the seniors who enter.
“Most of the people who find their way here are lonely and looking for friends,” explains Chaires, a widow who found herself in the very same position last year when she moved to Arlington Heights from Florida to live with her son and his family. “There was one lady who came in and she could barely talk. She’d lost her voice because she lived alone and had no one to talk to. I told her to pull up a chair and sit here with me and she could talk up a storm. She had so many stories to tell. But now she’s passed away. They come and go, and you miss them. But we all try to have as much fun as possible here.”
Indeed, in another nearby room, the pulsating beat of a Whitney Houston song fills the air. No one is wearing a fancy sweatsuit, and the pace is a little slower than Jane Fonda, but the daily exercise classes are packed with about two dozen seniors.
At noon, across the hall in the kitchen and dining room, a group of volunteer seniors greets guests and serves lunch to 150 peers who are celebrating Thanksgiving at this annual luncheon. Another 35 have their names on a waiting list hoping to be called if there are cancellations, explain volunteers Doris Massit and Lillian Zmuda, greeters for today’s festivities. What’s more, 15 senior volunteers will deliver the meals to their homebound peers.
Upstairs, senior volunteers Maxine Resnik and Helen Willens and their dogs, animal shelter alumni Ally and Duffy, entertain the more than two dozen elderly enrolled in the Northwest Community Hospital’s Adult Day Care Center. The gentle four-legged creatures make their way around the circle of chairs, as seniors bend over to pet them or pull them up in their laps to cuddle.
“The dogs make us feel special because they bring back memories of childhood,” says Resnik, who with Willens volunteers once a month bringing the pets for the seniors.
Park Place Senior Center, dubbed by senior guests as “The Active Place,” attracts aged people from throughout the northwest suburbs who come to spend eight hours a day, Monday through Friday, playing bingo and pool, exercising, eating lunch and socializing.
The eight programs housed at Park Place serve 400 seniors each day and more than 8,000 annually, according to Victoria Gurney Condell, volunteer coordinator for the center, which is operated by the Village of Arlington Heights. They include the senior center; a branch of the Arlington Heights Memorial Library; the Country Corner Gift Store, run by the Arlington Heights Park District; Catholic Charities Case Management Services; the Community Nutrition Network; the adult day care center; the Resource Center for the Elderly; and the Volunteer Center of Northwest Suburban Chicago.
At the core of this hub of activity are 400 regular volunteers, many of them seniors, who dedicate their time day in and day out, Condell says. Another 900 donate their time for special events, such as dances, craft fairs and flu shot programs.
“It’s all about seniors helping seniors,” Condell adds.
– 2 p.m. Bethany Lutheran Church Head Start Program in Crystal Lake:
“One day, Sal left with his mom to go to Blueberry Hill to pick blueberries,” reads Pat Meccia, as she extends her arms, drawing the preschoolers closer to get a better look at the colorful pages of the book before her. Squirming at first, the children soon are chuckling with glee as they crowd in close to this storyteller sitting on the floor.
Two years ago, this Marengo grandmother and mother of four grown sons decided to put her love of books and talents for reading fairy tales to work for children.
Signing up as a “Book Buddy” for Head Start of Crystal Lake, she’s been transforming the concrete floor of this church basement that houses the preschool program into a stage for magic and merriment one afternoon a week ever since.
Today, the parents have joined the storytelling fest, following a special kid-and-staff-prepared Thanksgiving feast earlier in the afternoon.
Meccia is one of 10 “Book Buddy” volunteers who dedicate at least one afternoon a week to read to the children, according to Deb Belinger, education and volunteer coordinator for the Community Action Agency in Woodstock, which oversees Head Start.
“For many of the kids, it’s the only chance they have to have a book read to them,” Belinger adds. “They are thrilled when Pat and the other volunteers show up.”
For Meccia, the reading sessions are equally as powerful: “You watch the enthusiasm on their faces, and that’s more thanks than you’ll ever need,” she says.
– 6:30 p.m. Spring Hill Mall in West Dundee:
“What are those people doing?” 3-year-old Meredith Mullen of West Dundee asks mom Michele and dad Tom as she points to another family picking ornaments off the 12-foot-tall Christmas tree located in the Marshall Field’s wing near the mall’s center court.
When Michele explains that they are selecting ornaments that carry the wishes of “poor children who might not get any gifts this Christmas, unless people like us help them,” the preschooler bolts from her mom and 10-month-old sister, Caroline, runs up the wooden ramp surrounding the tree and insists: “Mom, let’s take two.”
Since the mall first displayed its Giving Tree more than five years ago, it has had an urgent mission-to help needy children, families and senior citizens from 17 area social service agencies. Those agencies include the Community Crisis Center in Elgin, St. Joseph’s Care Pantry in Elgin and Two Rivers Head Start in Elgin, to name just a few. The ornaments carry the names of those people and their special wishes for Christmas, and shoppers are invited to select a name tag and help make a needy someone’s holiday wishes come true.
This year, the need is more urgent than ever: 3,000 ornaments, all carrying poignant requests-“12-year-old boy needs a winter hat and gloves,” “pregnant young woman needs maternity clothes,” and on and on-dangle from the tree, according to volunteer Barb Ferguson of Sleepy Hollow.
As president of the Dundee Township United Way, Ferguson is one of about a dozen volunteers who will staff the Giving Tree registration table through Christmas Eve, though presents that are brought in late might not get to the recipient until after Christmas.
“You are going to make some little girl very happy on Christmas,” Ferguson tells little Meredith as she explains that the girl on her ornament would like puzzles, jewelry or a doll. The other ornament is for a woman who needs clothing.
“What’s really gratifying about this job,” she explains to a visitor, “is the number of young families like this who are so excited about helping others. They are really passing on a wonderful holiday message to their children.”
An ardent supporter of the social service agencies funded through the United Way program, Ferguson takes a little extra initiative when signing up gift givers.
“You know,” she tells Gary Sullivan, a father of two from Elgin, who is signing up to buy a present, “the Community Crisis Center in Elgin could use some nice young men like you to help out at its holiday party. Think about it. If you’re interested, here’s the number to call.”
Bold? Maybe. But Ferguson describes her mission quite passionately.
“The beauty of this tree is that it draws people who really always wanted to help, but just never knew where to start,” Ferguson says. “I figure every little bit doesn’t hurt. So I try to open up the opportunity for them to do more. Believe me, it works.”
– 10 p.m. A tiny office tucked behind a business complex, which houses Talkline Helplines Inc. in Elk Grove Village:
With a television blasting the evening news from a corner of the room, volunteer Karen carefully focuses her attention on the caller on the phone line.
“I understand how difficult this must be for you,” she explains to the caller. “I’m here to help. I want to help you. So let’s see what we can do . . .”
About 10 minutes later, Karen finishes her call and hangs up the phone. She explains to the visitor this evening that the call came from a woman in Barrington who believes her 19-year-old daughter is addicted to drugs and is giving drugs to her young child, the woman’s grandchild.
As she does with most calls, Karen explains that the biggest help she can provide is to refer the caller to the social service agency, counselor or organization that will be able to provide her with the most professional help in the morning. From a computer on her cubicle desk, she has looked up the number for the Chicago Bar Association’s attorney referral service and recommended the caller consult an attorney about the legalities involved in this issue.
She adds: “A lot of people just need to get their problems out. They turn to us as the friend they might not have to talk to.”
Karen, a mother of three grown children and owner of an image-consulting business in Mt. Prospect, has been handling the phone lines at least one late night a week for the last eight years.
This evening, she is joined in her volunteer efforts by Bryan, a college student from Chicago who is majoring in psychology at Loyola University; Art, an Elk Grove Village resident and operations analyst for United Airlines; and Mike, a plumber from Schaumburg.
Each volunteer must complete 40 hours of training to staff the helplines, and most put in at least three hours a week, according to Karen McGinnis, volunteer manager for Talkline.
Before long, the television is turned off, as the phone lines begin ringing with increased urgency.
Says Art, who will end his shift at 1 a.m.: “The calls start increasing the later it gets. That’s probably because, for most of us, our problems seem worse at nighttime. That’s when you can’t sleep thinking about them.”
The phones will ring like this regularly through the wee morning hours as they do every day around the clock.
Adds Art, “I like doing this because it makes me feel good to know I am here for people who are upset and don’t have anyone else to turn to.”
