With as much pride as if she were showing off her own home, Joyce Quilty takes a visitor on a tour of the new Libertyville Civic Center, which also serves as the senior center.
Here is the dining room, bright and cheerful in blue and white; here is the lobby, with attractive groupings of comfortable furniture; and the small meeting rooms, where seniors can use computers; the lounge, with a big-screen TV, a piano and a pool table.
Quilty has a right to be proud. The senior center represents a considerable investment of her time on behalf of seniors, going back more than 15 years.
Now 55, Quilty first got involved by visiting patients at Winchester House, the Lake County-run nursing home, through her church, St. Joseph Catholic Church of Libertyville.
“I grew up with my grandparents–my parents both died young–so I felt I wanted to do something for the elderly,” she said. “Seniors are so happy and appreciative. Every little thing you do, they are there with a big smile and usually have no hidden agenda.”
The next level of involvement for the mother of five was planning trips and activities for the Senior Friendship Club of St. Joseph. She discovered that often the club could not fill a bus, thus increasing the cost for each individual and making it prohibitive for many.
“Libertyville has become a rich community, but a lot of our seniors have been here since Day 1. They are living on retirement incomes and are not affluent,” Quilty said.
She soon learned that other senior clubs in Libertyville were experiencing the same problems. “Sometimes there would be three buses going to the same place, each half filled,” she said. It made sense to coordinate activities. In 1980 she founded the Libertyville Senior Council, which she now serves as president. It includes representatives of the American Association of Retired Persons, the Lake County Council for Seniors, the Liberty Towers Tenant Council, the Senior Friendship Club of St. Joseph, the Libertyville Presbyterian Seniors, the Libertyville Parks and Recreation Department, the Cook Memorial Library and the senior center.
The council represents 7,000 elderly people in Libertyville Township. Although each group remains autonomous, the council meets once a month to coordinate activities and advocate for seniors. It also publishes a monthly newsletter listing local programs and activities.
Since forming, the council has met with Libertyville High School administrators and arranged for some adult education classes of interest to seniors to be scheduled in the late afternoon rather than the evening. It has solicited local businesses for money to subsidize trips and luncheons. It initiated the Carrier Alert Program in Libertyville, in which postal carriers watch out for any problems elderly people on their routes may be experiencing.
“This job involves a lot of begging, but the community is so supportive and wonderful,” Quilty said.
The biggest boost came when the village was able to buy the old post office building on Church Street in 1992 and remodel it as a civic center. It is leased to the Civic Center Foundation, a volunteer group formed 15 years ago by the Libertyville Lions Club, Libertyville Junior Women’s Club, Knights of Columbus and Libertyville Jaycees to raise money for a civic center.
The foundation, the village and Libertyville Township all contributed to the renovation. Many individuals, organizations and businesses donated furnishings, including Caremark Inc. of Northbrook, a major contributor of furniture and artwork.
Opened in October 1994, the building also serves as a senior center from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday under the auspices of Catholic Charities of Lake County, which has operated a center in Libertyville for 15 years.
That center formerly occupied space in Libertyville Towers, a seniors apartment building.
Lois Pacente, senior center coordinator, said the new location is more visible and allows for expanded programming but that it probably would not have happened without Quilty. The foundation originally wanted the building used only for single events, such as meetings and parties and not for continuing drop-in programs.
“Joyce is a very strong advocate for seniors, and she convinced the foundation that this was a good place for seniors to meet,” Pacente said.
From 3:30 to 6:30 p.m. on weekdays, the civic center is open as a youth drop-in center and on Saturday evenings as a coffeehouse for teens. The senior center “is a place to come and meet your friends, to play cards, to chew the fat,” said Bob Vehlow of Libertyville, who has known Quilty for 15 years and is a regular at the senior center. “Joyce was real instrumental in working out a deal for this center.”
Brad Buell, president of the Civic Center Foundation, said, “The building is used 80 percent of the time, and this is better than we had anticipated. It’s working very well . Joyce has always been a driving force for senior activities, but she also sits on our management board and is very level-headed and fair.”
Quilty has lived in Lake County all her life and until recently ran a cake-decorating business out of her Libertyville home. She claims she is going to cut back on her volunteer activities now that husband, Jerome, is retired, her children are grown and there are seven grandchildren to spoil.
Jerome Quilty doubts that will ever happen. “Sometimes she feels guilty about it since I retired, but if she cuts back, it will be for the grandchildren, not for me. Her satisfaction is great doing what she does. I hear praise for her everywhere I go. One senior said she is like Mother Teresa to them.”
Judy Wehrly of Round Lake, Quilty’s identical twin, said her sister is often late for family functions because she is tending to the needs of one senior or another. “If they need her, she goes.”
In 1993 Quilty received the Distinguished Volunteer Award from the Northeastern Illinois Area Agency on Aging. She was nominated for the honor by state Rep. Andrea Moore, who has known Quilty for 25 years. As neighbors they were involved in many of the same community and school activities.
“Joyce gives an extraordinary amount of time to the community, and she has found her niche with the seniors,” Moore said. “She is such an enthusiastic person, and she is also warm and caring.”
Quilty is modest about her activities, leaving it to others to fill in the details. She clearly enjoys what she is doing but asked earnestly, “Can we just make this about the center and not about me?”
