For more than 24 years, thousands of parents living in the New Trier school district have been bringing their infants and toddlers to a constructive play program called Parents and Children Together (PACT).
Parents and their children spend an hour together each week in any of 53 different workshops, from “Prickles and Tickles,” where children glue various textured materials to paper, to an “Imagine” class structured around storytelling and pretending.
But today the non-profit program, located for another five weeks at Skokie School in Winnetka, faces homelessness because the school needs the space for surging enrollments. PACT has been searching desperately–and so far unsuccessfully–for a new location.
“We have no place to go, and we’re supposed to be out by March 4,” said PACT director Lynn Kelso.
Kelso has contacted churches, community centers and businesses across Winnetka, Northfield, Glencoe and Wilmette, looking for a 2,100-square-foot space that would accommodate children, have at least 24 parking spaces and be affordable. What she has discovered so far is that’s a tall order.
Until last week, Kelso said she thought she would be able to use space in Winnetka’s Christ Church at 470 Maple St., but then the church vestry unexpectedly voted the request down, worried that the program would interfere with church activities.
While Kelso says her predicament is nobody’s fault, she hopes her troubles will alert parents and town leaders to the need for supporting community-based non-profits.
“They are equally as important as the public programs that the schools provide, because they are a foundation for the child,” she said.
Crying wolf more expensive: Evanston’s Police and Fire Departments receive so many false alarms from certain institutions that this week the City Council granted preliminary approval for the departments to start charging for excessive false alarms.
The first few false alarms still would be free under the proposed ordinance, but then a graduated series of fees would kick in for additional unfounded alarms.
Topping the list of most false alarms last year was the Presbyterian Home senior center, with 94, followed by St. Francis Hospital and Evanston Northwestern Healthcare with roughly 50 apiece.
Residents or companies that accumulate 26 to 75 false alarms in a year would see fines jump to $500 per alarm from $100. Those with more than 75 would be charged $1,000 per false alarm.
Good neighbor: Shortly after Morton Grove resident Gil Peters purchased his small Toro snowblower about six years ago, he figured while out clearing the walk he might as well do his elderly neighbors’ too. Then he figured it wouldn’t take much more effort to clear the sidewalks of his next door neighbor, a single mother.
“Then it just seemed to grow from there,” said Peters, 48, who anchors the WMAQ radio news under the name Christopher Michael.
Now, every time the snow reaches more than 2 inches, Peters is out with his Toro, clearing the entire 5800 block of Carol Avenue–about 18 homes on both sides of the street. He’s been out twice already in the last week and was gearing up Wednesday for another potential snowfall.
Last summer, in a surprise ceremony held during a Village Board meeting, the neighbors got together to award Peters the first Good Neighbor Award. He was given a plaque with a snowblower in the background.
Drained and toppled: A 50-year-old Glenview landmark disappeared Saturday when the 250-foot tall, red, white and blue water tower at the former Glenview Naval Air Station was demolished. In use since 1952, the tower no longer is needed, as the redevelopment area, called The Glen, now gets its water from Glenview’s system.
