Sunday, November 25, 2012
Jen Rubino, 17, a high school senior, has braved two dozen surgeries so far. After one, a kind act inspired her to start a charity that has mushroomed, gained celebrity endorsements and helped children in unimaginable pain.
- VOLUNTEERS IN THE NEWS
- Pam DeFiglio
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Sunday, November 25, 2012
As an 11-year-old with a chronic illness, Jen Rubino was having a dark day. She'd had her 13th surgery, and she was lying in a hospital bed, in pain. When she received a handmade greeting card saying "stay strong" from a volunteer she never met, she says it made a world of difference to know that others were pulling for her to make it--and it really did help her to stay strong. Now 17, Rubino, of Park Ridge, a senior at Maine South High School, has founded a charity to give other seriously ill kids that sense of hope and caring she says the card meant to her. Though Rubino struggles with chronic pain every day, she has managed, through Cards for Hospitalized Kids, to help 10,200 kids in hospitals in many states, helped by endorsements …
Monday, March 19, 2012
Librarian Deborah Lazar is raising money to rebuild a library in the coastal town of Petit Goave. That's gotten harder to do as the memory of the devastating earthquake two years ago starts to fade.
The only time Deborah Lazar paused during an hour-long conversation about her fundraising efforts to rebuild a Haitian library is when asked what she felt when she heard about the catastrophic earthquake that hit the country she’d grown to love. “To see it was devastating,” she said. “To know that people live and keep going in that is what I carry with me here.” That is what keeps Lazar, of Evanston, motivated in her fundraising work two years after the quake that killed more than 200,00 people and left three times that many homeless. And it’s why she is on a renewed quest to remind the rest of us that the restoration work there is far from done. “It is so important to keep Haiti in the hearts and minds of people,” she said. As a librarian…
Friday, March 9, 2012
The Evanston-Skokie writing team was inspired to finish their book by the story of a 4-year-old boy who died of epilepsy while they were writing it. Now they're donating part of the book's sales to a foundation set up in his name.
The story of how Chip Gilbertson and Gina Restivo came to write a children’s book together starts with a date. The two, both single parents, met through Match.com in 2008. While there was no long-term romance in store for them as a couple, they became close friends. And they learned that they had each thought about writing a children’s book since they were young. They decided to collaborate. Three years later, the two published their first book, Fly Danny, Fly, which received a Mom’s Choice Award last month. The book, about a boy and his (possibly) imaginary flying pig, seeks to inspire creativity in its readers. It also supports a nonprofit foundation set up in honor of a 4-year-old boy, who was Restivo’s neighbor, and died from Sudden …
Friday, February 10, 2012
Silver Care Home Services took 4th place at Chicago State University's Entrepreneurial Idol Contest.
New business owners and best friends Allie Payne and Silveria Steele have turned a simple, yet smart idea into cold hard cash. Last week they won $2,500 for their idea to have home health care workers use Skype and Face Time to help their clients talk to family and friends who live far away. The two, who met on their first day of freshman year at Evanston Township High School about 30 years ago, founded Silver Care Home Services a couple months ago. Just as they were getting started, Payne saw a post on a friend’s Facebook Page about the Entrepreneurial Idol Competition at Chicago State University. They decided to enter, which meant scrambling to finish their business plan and other documentation needed to enter the contest. It paid off — …
Monday, December 5, 2011
Please help us choose our Athlete of the Week, Nov. 28 - Dec. 4: New Trier's Samantha Stoddart, Niles North's Mariyah Henley, Evanston's Josh Irving, Glenbrook North's Corey Kahen and Niles West's Ahmad Gibson.
Nearly 10,000 votes were cast to make Erin Purdy last week's Athlete of the Week. The following nominees for our region's Patch Athlete of the Week, Nov. 28- Dec. 4: Samantha Stoddart, freshman, girls gymnastics, New Trier – Making her debut at the high-school level, Stoddart won the all-around competition in a dual meet against Niles North with a combined score of 34.85 over four events. Stoddart also took first in the uneven parallel bars (8.6) and floor exercise (9.1). Mariyah Henley, senior, basketball center, Niles North – After eclipsing the 1,000-point mark for her career last week, Henley continued her scoring onslaught by dropping 36 points in Niles North’s 57-47 loss to New Trier on Nov. 29. Henley’s 36 points tied a career high…
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Almost 10,000 votes were cast during Patch's week-long poll; see who came out on top.
Patch Athlete of the Week, Nov. 21- Nov. 27: Erin Purdy is this week's Patch Athlete of the Week. Garnering about 56 percent of the vote, Purdy topped a deep field that included local basketball and football players. There were nearly 10,000 votes, but Purdy's state championship win in diving gave her the edge and made her this week's winner. See last week's nominees HONORABLE MENTION Dashae Shumate, sophomore, basketball forward, Niles West – The dynamic sophomore forward scored a season-high 22 points in Niles West’s 73-57 victory over defending state runner-up Zion Benton in the Deerfield Thanksgiving Challenge on Nov. 21. Shumate scored 10 points in the fourth quarter and should be a second scoring option to Jewell Loyd for Niles West…
Joe LoVerde
7:45 pm on Thursday, November 22, 2012
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