Why We Love Judi and Cindy

If it seems like we’re doing a lot of writing about our volunteers it’s because we are – we just have so many wonderful people giving us their time and talents, and they often go unrecognized. We want to make sure you know that we couldn’t do all we do without them!

This morning we want to tell you about two of our Wednesday volunteers, Judi Simon and Cindy Fabbri. Judi and Cindy come in each week to do whatever kind of sorting is needed to prepare for the monthly holiday delivery for seniors. Today they’re back in the Secret Pal room inventorying all the extra gifts so that when it’s time to see which seniors didn’t get a Secret Pal gift it will be easier to find something suitable for them. Next week they’ll probably be pulling those gifts for the January 22 delivery. Other weeks you’ll find them sorting food for the seniors.

Judi has been volunteering regularly for almost 7 years, and has been a senior sponsor for over 15 years! She started out volunteering around the holidays after reading a newspaper article about HSP but wanted to do more once she stopped working. She’s always had an interest in helping seniors and enjoys doing a variety of things for HSP. Sometimes she helps sort toys and even brings home bags of them to wrap.

Cindy has been giving us her time for over a year now. She was looking for a volunteer opportunity and found us on the website for “Giving DuPage.” She started coming around the holidays and really enjoyed being a part of the Christmas Offering. She came back to help with the Christmas gift sorting and delivery again this year. Cindy also sponsors 4 children through the Children’s Birthday Project. When asked what she likes most about coming Cindy stated, “Christmas is a lot of fun, but so is the senior gift and food sorting. Plus I get to share recipes with Judi every week!” Sounds good to us! We’re so glad they keep coming back.

Thank you from the bottom of our hearts to Judi and Cindy for their hard work and dedication to HSP! We appreciate all you do!

Happy Birthday, Paul!

As the Children’s Birthday Project may have led you to believe, we love birthdays! So when one of us here at HSP has a birthday, we celebrate! Today we are celebrating the birthday of one of our newest staff members, Paul Yambrovich. Paul was recently hired as our Community Outreach Coordinator, but he isn’t new to HSP. Paul has been volunteering for the past 25 years, helping out when needed, but primarily around the holidays. Paul’s experience is in marketing and sales, and we’re so excited to have his expertise. We look forward to all the great connections Paul will be making and maintaining for us.

To celebrate Paul’s birthday, the entire staff along with two of our volunteers ate a delicious lunch from Jimmy John’s. As with any good party, we had party hats and balloons, and finished the meal with cake, ice-cream, and a chorus of “Happy Birthday.” Happy Birthday, Paul, and welcome to the HSP team! We’re so glad to have you!

Thanks to Ginna Ericksen

Yesterday we told you about our need for Secret Pals. Today we’re going to introduce to you a dedicated volunteer behind the scenes, Ginna Ericksen. Ginna is our primary coordinator for the Secret Pals program.

Ginna began working with HSP as a Girl Scout Leader. Years earlier she had read a newspaper article about HSP and its founder, Karole Kettering, and when she was looking for organizations for her Troop to work with she remembered HSP and contacted Karole. The rest is history!

Ginna’s Girl Scout Troop did a lot of work with HSP so in 2007 when her son, Nick, needed to do an internship she naturally thought of HSP. While Nick was interning he had to make phone calls to find volunteer drivers for the monthly senior delivery, and he called his mom. She agreed, and during the delivery she learned about the Secret Pals program. Ginna, along with her daughter Emily, who was 11 at the time, decided to become Secret Pals and have been enjoying their duties together ever since.

After becoming a Secret Pal Ginna decided to do a little more by coming in and helping to sort and ready the gifts for delivery. Last spring she became the primary coordinator for the Secret Pal program. You can often find her in the little glass Secret Pal room, either sorting gifts or plugging away with wishlists and requests.

If you’re wondering what it takes to coordinate the Secret Pals program, it all starts when someone asks to become a Secret Pal. Ginna matches Secret Pals with the seniors who don’t already have one. She maintains wishlists for the seniors and gives each Secret Pal either a wishlist from the senior, or a list of general ideas. Each month when the gifts come in, Ginna organizes them on the shelves in the Secret Pal room and gets them ready for delivery day. If a senior doesn’t have a Secret Pal or a Secret Pal misses a month, Ginna makes every effort to ensure each senior gets something from the stockpile of small gifts or toiletries that HSP keeps.

In addition to involving Nick and Emily, Ginna’s daughter, Melissa, also did an internship with HSP last summer. Volunteering with HSP has really become a family activity for Ginna and her children! For all that Ginna, Nick, Melissa, and Emily do, we show our gratitude with a great big THANK YOU!!!

15 Secret Pals Needed!

Do you know about our Secret Pals program for seniors?

Each month, when we deliver food to our needy seniors, we also deliver gifts from their “Secret Pals.” We match seniors up with Secret Pals and give each Secret Pal a wishlist from the senior along with a profile of that senior. The wishlist is a list of items that the senior would like, but can’t afford to buy. We ask that Secret Pals to purchase monthly items between $5 and $25 in value and either deliver or mail the gifts to us at HSP. When we package up the food for the senior delivery day each month we include any Secret Pal gifts. This gift not only gives the seniors a fun surprise, but also lets them know that someone cares for them and is thinking of them.

In order to become a Secret Pal we ask that you commit to bringing or mailing in a small gift once a month, before delivery day. If you’re worried that getting here once a month might become too hectic, you also have the option of bringing in several months’ worth of gifts at once, and we will be sure to distribute the gifts for the appropriate months. Another option is to send in a gift card as your gift for the month.

If you’re looking for examples of the types of items that may be on wishlists, they include: towels, washcloths, picture frames, sponges, cleaning supplies, slippers, sunglasses, hats, socks, moisturizing lotion, sunscreen, stationary, crafts, and puzzles.

We currently need 15 people to sponsor our seniors as Secret Pals in order to have a Secret Pal for each one of our seniors. If you are interested in becoming a Secret Pal or would like more information, please call Sarah Grindstaff, our Senior Citizen Project Coordinator at 630-221-8340, or email her at scp@humanitarianservice.org. The Secret Pal program is very rewarding. Your senior will feel good, and so will you!

Thanks to Our Food Sorters

Monday morning gets a bad rap. There are songs about it, sayings about it, and even movie quotes about it, “Sounds like someone has a case of the Mondays.” But here at HSP we love Mondays! It’s not that we wouldn’t love to sleep in or have a little more time for our weekend errands, but Monday morning brings with it some of our most dedicated volunteers – our food sorters! They come in from 9:00 a.m. until about 11:30 or noon, and do just about everything there is to do in order to get the food and supplies ready for our monthly senior food delivery.

Among the Monday volunteers are Marilyn Kinney, Marilyn Sweeny, Bob Mancini, Jane (Janie) Corrigan, Rita Bezdicek, Mary Persinger, Mike Baumgartner, Deanna Cruzan (who brought her daughter, Sarah Hasheiter today), and Dan Bagger. They were quick to point out a few of the regulars who weren’t here today, so they could be recognized as well. Dawn Spiewak, Diane Breese, Sue Mancini, and Roland Imes have given many a Monday morning as well.

So we decided to ask these volunteers a little bit about why they like coming here and what it is that they do while they’re here. It wasn’t easy to get them to stop moving to answer questions, but after following them around the warehouse we were finally able to talk to everyone who came in this morning.

We’ll start with Marilyn Kinney. Shortly after retiring in 2006 she started looking for a volunteer position to keep her busy. She wanted something on a weekday and close to home, so when she came across HSP the fit was perfect and she’s been coming ever since.

Bob Mancini comes because he wants to help people, but he started helping out about 5 years ago when his wife, Sue, was taking a class at COD that required her to do some community service. She came to HSP and they’ve both been coming here since. Sue helps out in the office.

Mary Persinger is another long-time volunteer - she’s been coming for about 3 years. She used to work in senior services an do referrals to HSP, so she knew what a great program we have, and wanted to be a part of it. She also enjoys physically doing things with her hands.

Rita Bezdicek is starting her third year of volunteering and likes the consistent and regular hours that volunteering with HSP allows her.

Mike Baumgartner started volunteering with HSP about a year ago after his church, Willow Creek Community, became involved with HSP. Mike enjoys coming here and feels that Jesus wants him to be here helping out.

Jane Corrigan says that she comes because she has been lucky to live a fortunate life and wants to be able to help people who aren’t quite as fortunate. She’s been coming for just about a year and brings friends along with her sometimes.

Marilyn Sweeny volunteers with several organizations, but started helping out at HSP in November. She was the Director at World Relief for years and had worked with HSP while helping refugees and immigrants through World Relief. She really likes that HSP provides a direct service to families.

Dan Bagger started coming to volunteer a couple months ago and really likes to be able to serve the needy. He likes it so much he came almost daily during the Christmas holiday.

Lastly, Deanna Cruzan has also been coming since November and knows that there are a lot of hungry people who need to be fed. She thinks that should be the top priority and likes helping to be a part of that. Her daughter, Sarah, came today to help out so she could spend time with her mom, but also thought it would be a better thing to do than to stay in bed sleeping.

To all our volunteers, we give a great big THANK YOU! We appreciate your time and all you do for HSP and our seniors. We couldn’t do it without you.

HSP 2011 Staff

HSP Staff – 2011

Alex Gordy, Megan Birkley, Jan Thompson, Floyd Kettering, Sharon Fritz, Sarah Grindstaff and Paul Yambrovich

Our very capable and dedicated staff have successfully navigated & produced our very ambitious Christmas offering, the serving of 456 Families and 1,200 Children. Distributing 20 tons of food and 20 tons of toys. We are looking forward to this New Year. We at HSP celebrate our old friends and look forward to making new ones. We look forward to working with you in 2011. Many Blessings to you & yours!!!

WOW!!!!

 

HSP had a Mother drop by today to pick up one of her children’s Birthday Boxes and what a surprise she gave HSP!!! We always ask our Mom’s and Dad’s to fill out a survey and provide us with feedback on how we at HSP might improve ourselves and our programs. And much to our amazement and happiness, this Mom told us she had absolutely no suggestions that could help us, because HSP has made her families’ Christmas and Birthdays so wonderful and put such wide smiles on her children’s faces that we are already doing an excellent job. This Mom does not think we could do any better, she said “how do you improve on excellence.” That made every minute we spend working for our families worth more than we can ever say! Thank you for that feedback, this fuels our energies, our hearts and our spirits to push ourselves even further in this New Year!!!