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Rolling Meadows preschool grateful for volunteer 'Grandma Pat'

She plays dress-up.

She sings Jingle Bells.

She kneads Play-Doh.

She's Grandma Pat, and she's up for anything.

The 85-year-old "legend," as the teachers at a Rolling Meadows school call her, easily slides into the world of preschoolers, many of whom have special needs.

It is chaotic and unpredictable. Overwhelming at times.

"We're pulled a thousand different ways," says Betsy Mensch, a teacher's assistant who works one-on-one with a girl with spina bifida.

That's where Grandma Pat comes in, ready to pull up a pint-size chair, coach a youngster through a puzzle and listen.

"Why were we crying? Tell Grandma," she says gently to Brody Smith, who burst into tears when a newspaper photographer began taking pictures of the class.

Pat Hollerbach is nobody's grandma at John G. Conyers Learning Academy. But it's her nurturing and selflessness that earned her the name, coined by a former student.

"She's kind of the one that if they're having a bad day or crying, they go and sit on Grandma Pat's lap," Conyers Principal Peg Lasiewicki said. "She is the one that makes them feel all better."

Laughter, love

Grandma Pat walked into Elaine Moffitt's class 10 years ago.

Hollerbach's husband had died about a month earlier. The widow could have, understandably, holed up in her Palatine condo, where she moved after her husband's death. But self-pity, Hollerbach says, can be isolating.

"You get lazy. You feel sorry for yourself. You cry," she said.

Hollerbach's grandson, Kienan, was a student in Conyers' early childhood program at the time. Her daughter and Kienan's mom told her the teacher could use some help. Hollerbach offered, starting off as a classroom volunteer three times a week.

"It was a lot of laughter," she said. "I just felt the love there."

Hollerbach, who met her husband as a keypunch operator at a tech company and raised a family in Arlington Heights, had no background in education.

"We're so over-engineered now. Everything's got to be a curriculum or a theory," Mensch said. "It's like natural nurturing. That's what she brings to the classroom. She doesn't have to have a degree for that."

Hollerbach's grandson has long since graduated from Conyers, but she still volunteers, every morning, five days a week. In 10 years, Hollerbach has rarely missed a class.

"We all have days where we don't want to get out of bed or whatever," said Mensch, whose son, Nicholas, was a classmate of Hollerbach's grandson. "But when you see that Grandma Pat got out of bed and drove here on a really cold, nasty day, it's like, 'Who am I to complain?' If Grandma Pat can do it, we sure can."

Grandma the teacher

A traditional classroom volunteer has to do the menial tasks. Make copies. Run errands for the teacher, right?

"Grandma Pat is a teacher just like me," Moffitt tells her students, ages 3 to 5.

The principal, too, sees her as part of the Conyers staff. At the start of each school year, the surrogate grandmother helps ease the transition from home to school for new preschoolers, Moffitt says.

"She can tell when somebody really needs that extra something, especially the new, little 3-year-olds that come in, and they're sad," Moffitt said. "And every now and then, we'll see a little lipstick on their cheek. She's giving them a hug."

Each morning, Hollerbach prepares snacks from the cafeteria. She greets kids off the bus, reads books aloud, helps them with their handwriting and their confidence. Through snack and play time, students learn self sufficiency and independence. On one morning last week, a bowl of pumpkin muffins sat in the middle of a table. The kids served themselves. If a seat wasn't available, they came back later.

Hollerbach's maternal instincts used to tell her to pour a glass of milk for a 3-year-old. Now, if a student spills, she has to let the youngster clean up.

"I think they learn over here to be kind, to share things," said Hollerbach, who received a "Those Who Excel" award from the Illinois State Board of Education this fall.

She's usually dressed to the nines - arriving to school with big sunglasses, red lipstick and nails painted in glitter polish.

Her classroom fashion is not so glamorous. On Halloween, she donned a mustache. In a kitchen area, she slips into a chef's hat. And at a Christmas concert for parents in a couple of weeks, Hollerbach will bring out her apron and punch bowl.

"She brings a lot of levity to the place, so that we don't take ourselves so seriously," Mensch said.

She immerses herself in what educators call "uninterrupted play." Students move freely from station to station, where they learn social and fine motor skills and work alongside therapists. Grandma Pat is less an adult looming over their shoulders and more a friendly buddy who sits at their height.

Hollerbach says she's simply a social creature, someone who encourages other seniors in her condo complex to exercise and stay active in the community. She's had knee replacement surgery but never complains, Moffitt says.

"I just love Grandma Pat," she said.

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  Pat Hollerbach, also known as "Grandma Pat," molds Play-Doh with Brody Smith on a recent morning. Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
  "She's kind of the one that if they're having a bad day or crying, they go and sit on Grandma Pat's lap," Conyers Principal Peg Lasiewicki said. Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
  Pat Hollerbach works on an alphabet puzzle with Christian Perez. Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
  "She's kind of a legend around here," Conyers teacher Elaine Moffitt says of Hollerbach. Joe Lewnard/jlewnard@dailyherald.com
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