Selfless service to Schaumburg honored at awards luncheon

Schaumburg honored the unsung heroes of its day-to-day life at its Volunteer of the Year luncheon this week.

This was the 22nd year the village has awarded both an adult individual and a local organization as volunteers of the year. A youth volunteer was also named for the seventh straight year.

The awards luncheon Tuesday afternoon at Chandler's Banquets was launched by local pilot, philanthropist, businessman and adventurer John Rippinger's harrowing tales of his own international volunteerism, searching for missing World War II planes in the malevolent jungles of Papua New Guinea.

Carol Hall, vice president of the National Alliance on Mental Illness of Elk Grove-Schaumburg, was recognized as the adult volunteer of the year for 2009.

Hall was nominated as a very active senior citizen who's contributed to several different aspects of NAMI's work both locally and nationwide. She's helped adults with mental illness to connect with their peers and trained them to speak about their experiences to local nursing and health care students. Her work with the organization stretches back years.

Clearbrook's Partners in Adult Learning (PAL) program was the volunteer organization of the year. Every weekday, a special needs volunteer and his or her caregiver fulfill clerical work at the Schaumburg police station, as well as a few times a week at the Rolling Meadows Library, Harper College Library and Willow Creek Church in South Barrington. Two of the five volunteers, Tony Poulos and Annie Russell, are Schaumburg residents who look forward to making the jobs of the Schaumburg police a little bit easier.

This year's youth volunteer of the year was Payal Shukla, a student at Schaumburg High School. In addition to volunteering for the past two years at the St. Alexius Medical Center Day Surgery, she's been active in her school's Student-2-Student service organization.

She's helped coordinate an Adopt-A-Family program for the entire school, organized field trips to local elementary and junior high schools, and worked on such outreach programs as Christmas shopping with underprivileged children and a trick-or-treat for canned goods.