When you become involved, it becomes a passion, something you believe in,” says Jeanne Hardy, River Forest resident and member of Catholic Charities West Suburban Regional Advisory Board.
Hardy has formally been a part of Catholic Charities for about a decade. She joined the West Suburban board as chairperson in 1995 and immediately began to increase donations, through her talent for organizing successful benefit events. Her husband, Bill, serves on Catholic Charities’ archdiocesan-wide advisory board, and helps with fundraisers for the West Suburban region like its annual golf outing.
Dalia Rocotello, regional services representative for Catholic Charities West Suburban Services, works closely with Hardy. “Jeanne truly lives out the mission,” says Rocotello. “When needs are presented, she immediately takes action. We are very grateful for her support and dedication.”
Through Hardy’s leadership, funds raised to benefit the west suburban region moved from the four to five figures. These new monies and the board’s vision helped to create new programs in the region. New Hope Apartments Transitional Housing, and an ongoing food drive involving Catholic schools in the west suburbs are two of these programs.
Ongoing food drives
Hardy thinks of the food drive project as “The ‘Giving Tree’ that keeps on giving,” a tribute to one of her favorite stories, Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, about a tree that gives unconditional love?#34;along with its fruit, branches and trunk?#34;to a boy throughout his long life.
Hardy’s “tree” is made up of the parishes who continue to donate not only food, but grow their charitable giving to include clothes and other resources. The parishes who started out with the drive continue to give, and new parishes come on board like new branches on the tree.
A mother of five, Hardy started early, passing on her “Giving Tree” philosophy to her own children, each of whom attended Catholic elementary school. Every Christmas the Hardys would “adopt” a family through their parish. Hardy always requested a large family so that everyone in her family would have someone to shop for.
When she started up the food drives, it was natural to connect with Catholic schools. She coordinates 2-3 food drives per year with 5-6 schools in each drive. Each school focuses their efforts on one or two types of non-perishable food, such as canned goods, oatmeal, juice, macaroni and cheese.
Without the support of the food drives within parishes and the community, the Cicero-based west suburban regional office would not be able to maintain the pantry hours it now offers.
St. Luke Elementary School in River Forest is one of the schools Hardy has woven into her network for food donations (She also works with Ascension, and Fenwick and Trinity High Schools). St. Luke students collect peanut butter and jelly for the food pantry, and incorporate the service project into their daily studies.
Kitty McSorley, a second grade teacher at St. Luke, coordinates service projects for all grades. For the past four years, St. Luke has focused its service activities on Catholic Charities West Suburban Region.
“We wanted to bring more cohesiveness into our mission of giving,” says McSorley. “Long-term projects with Catholic Charities develop a relationship so the kids could understand more deeply what we were doing and who we were doing it for.”
Instead of referring impersonally to ‘the poor,’ McSorley tells the children to call the recipients of their good works, ‘our brothers and sisters.’
For the food drive, McSorley goes in-depth with her second-graders. Early in the school year she might give the following “assignment” for religion class: Go home and ask your mom and dad how you can “earn” peanut butter and jelly.
For language arts the children wrote and presented announcements for the public address system at school. For math, McSorley’s second-graders sorted and classified the many jars that were donated, then built a pyramid with them. Finally, the children packed the jars up, including letters to “their brothers and sisters” served by Catholic Charities.
Some of the children even kissed the jars as a sign of the love they were sending along with them.
“This was the first year we delivered it and actually put it on the shelves,” says McSorley. But the experience took on an even more meaningful dimension when the food pantry experienced a fire just days after the children dropped off their donations.
When McSorley informed the children of the sad event, which destroyed much of the pantry stock, the children prayed together.
Hardy believes the “Giving Tree” project will create a new generation of service-minded citizens.
“There is nothing more important than doing the work we’re supposed to be doing to help others. It’s the greatest source of joy you can have, no matter how much you give, big or little,” Hardy says with a smile.
That’s how her commitment started, growing up in St. Pascal’s parish on Chicago’s Northwest Side.
“My parents were totally involved,” Hardy recalls. “My father, a policeman, was the backbone of the parish. He taught us, ‘This is your community; this is your life.’ My mother was always involved in parish activities.”
Hardy started her philanthropic career through her interest in art. Encouraged by a grade school teacher, she created pictures for her classroom. When Hardy’s mother had to organize a parish dinner, she would ask her daughter to do the posters advertising the event.
“I grew up doing exactly what I’ve done. You don’t even know you’re doing it. You see the end result so the steps are easy,” Hardy says of her talent for mobilizing people for charitable projects. Her early work experience as a teacher, and currently in event planning and retail sales (She works at Chico’s in River Forest Town Center II) certainly helps.
“Your life is on such a fast track,” she observes. “Then you do something and see how many people have nothing. It’s not that I donate much. You can get other people to donate and make them aware of the needs of others.”
June, she notes, is “Hunger Awareness” month.
Chico’s will donate 10 percent of every sale to Catholic Charities’ West Suburban Food Pantry, June 13-15 from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. and 4-7 p.m. Refreshments will be served.