Parejkos turn loss to a positive

No matter how much time may pass, some personal catastrophes can never be made good or forgotten. At best they serve as transformative experiences to help learn and grow.

A decade ago Gretchen and Jim Parejko suffered incomparable personal loss. From their depths emerged a positive, the Andrew James Foundation.

Currently a Neuqua Valley student services teacher, and the Wildcats girls track coach since 2002, in 2006 Gretchen was nearing full term with their first child, 33½ weeks pregnant when she attended a routine prenatal checkup.

During the exam doctors discovered her child had died in the womb.

"My first thought was, I need to see him," Gretchen said.

On that day, July 18, 2006, she delivered a stillborn baby, Andrew James.

Subsequent tests revealed Gretchen had a condition called Factor V Leiden. The Mayo Clinic describes this as a mutation of a factor in the blood that can cause clotting.

"Unfortunately we lost our first son and it was very shocking. But we found out what was wrong and we were able to do something about it," said Gretchen, who has known her husband since she was 9 years old, both youth swimmers in Oak Forest. They now coach for Fox Valley Swimming in Naperville in addition to Gretchen's track duties.

"I kind of figure that he gave his life so we could find out what was wrong, and I had two sons (Jimmy, 9, and Will, 7) after that who are amazing," she said.

"As you open up and talk about it, you find so many people who've had that same blood clotting disorder and had also lost children. It's been quite a journey."

As we've written about many times in this space - such as with the Phil Lawler Batting 4 a Cure Foundation or the JKB Experiential Education Foundation - courageous survivors seek to help others in similar straits learn or benefit from their loss.

Months after the death of their first child the Parejkos established the Andrew James Foundation, which serves Fox Valley families through educational and charitable assistance. The foundation (andrewjamesfoundation.org) provides two $2,000 scholarships annually to high school students. Due to the Parejkos' background one goes to a high school swimmer.

The 2015 scholarship winners were Neuqua Valley track athlete Ekene Nwosisi and swimmer Adriana Trekas. Last year J.P. Leshock also was granted a scholarship due to the foundation board being "very impressed" with the former Neuqua swimmer and youth coach, Gretchen Parejko said.

"The girls and the boys who have won these awards have just been amazing with what they've done in their lives," she said.

A big aid to raising that scholarship money is the annual Andrew James Foundation Memorial Golf Outing, a best ball scramble to be held Sept. 11 at Naperbrook Golf Course in Plainfield. For details or reservations visit the website or contact board member and outing coordinator Harry Fischer at ajfgolf@hotmail.com.

"The great thing is people keep coming back to it," Gretchen Parejko said.

Greater still is an ability to accept tragedy and persevere.

"I have two healthy boys and they all know about their brother and how special he was to us and how he'll always be special to us, and meaningful," she said.

Jumping in

It's a trifle late for preseason lists, but anyhow, in late August Evanston swimming and diving coach Kevin Auger issued his annual girls rankings.

At the top he had defending state champion Rosary followed by Loyola and defending runner-up Lake Forest. Neuqua Valley earned a No. 8 ranking and other members of Auger's "Super 25" included No. 11 Downers Grove North, No. 19 West Chicago, No. 22 Naperville North and No. 25 Waubonsie Valley.

Individually he listed Downers North senior Lindsay Mathys among his top "distance freestyle" swimmers; Waubonsie senior Hannah Hunt among his top breast stroke specialists; Neuqua senior Wyli Erlechman in his top butterfly swimmers; and Downers North's twin diving duo of seniors Emily Aument and Liz Aument, who finished sixth and ninth, respectively, at the 2015 finals.

Timothy's IMPACT

June 27 was not an ordinary summer vacation day at Timothy Christian.

People of all ages visited the Elmhurst site, which houses students from elementary through high school, to celebrate the groundbreaking of Project IMPACT.

It's not an acronym. It's just important enough to Timothy to spell in all capitals.

"We're building our facilities for our kids to impact the future," said Jack LeGrand, a friendly man of several hats. He's the Trojans boys basketball coach and athletic director of both the middle school and high school.

A $16 million project, of which $15.2 million had been raised by Aug. 30 - Timothy prides itself on being debt-free - Project IMPACT is a versatile 60,000-square-foot building targeted for completion in the Fall 2017.

Timothy Christian superintendent Matt Davidson said the builder and engineer are Executive Construction Inc. of Hillside and V3 Companies of Woodridge, respectively, with the architect AMDG of Grand Rapids, Michigan.

The building is a combination classroom and gymnasium, devoted to seventh-grade classrooms on one level and eighth grade on another.

"It's not just a gym," LeGrand said, but what a gym it will be.

He said the new facility will probably be twice the size of the Trojans' current competition gym, which will be devoted to either freshmen or middle school games.

LeGrand said a 94-foot competition court will be accompanied by two adjacent 94-foot courts plotted sideways for practices, tournaments, summer leagues and such. Bleachers - on both sides of the court, which ends Timothy's single-bleacher era - will seat about 1,200 people, again nearly double the current capacity. There's other goodies like multiple locker rooms and viewing areas LeGrand compared to "a skybox feel."

"We hope to host not only state regional competition but also hope to be considered for state sectional competition as well," he said.

LeGrand said over the last five years Timothy has resurfaced its tennis courts, built a bells-and-whistles performance center, installed new bleachers in its current gym and upgraded the baseball field. Now, IMPACT.

"It's exciting seeing all our facilities kind of bulk up and grow," he said. "And this is the next step so we're all very excited for it."

doberhelman@dailyherald.com

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