Wheaton man's love for volunteering leads to, well, love

As a volunteer at the Western Open golf tournament in August 1986, Gerry Stratelak took his turn as a first-aid station supervisor.

It was not the first time he had volunteered. In his late 20s at the time, he had helped in several blood drives, beginning in high school.

But the gig at the Oak Brook Country Club was special: he worked alongside a Hinsdale Hospital nurse who also had volunteered for the event and would one day become his wife.

"If it were not for that coincidental volunteering, I doubt our paths would ever have crossed," he said.

Since then, the Wheaton resident has continued his devotion to volunteering, and for the past 12 years he has donated his time and skills to the DuPage County Forest Preserve District. He also helps his Winfield church serve meals at Hesed House, a homeless shelter in Aurora.

"I get so much more out of volunteering than what I put into it," said Stratelak, now 51.

As a forest preserve volunteer, Stratelak works primarily at Kline Creek Farm in West Chicago. He designed and built the facility's cattle shed, using skills he developed in his former career as an engineer.

"When they said we need a new cattle shed, I was just tickled to death that they would ask me to design it with them," said Stratelak, who now works in marketing.

The shed is now on the farmland and allows staffers to show visitors life on the farm in the late-1800s.

And his volunteer work doesn't end when the day ends. There have been times he has had to tend to a calf or lamb in the middle of the night as it gave birth.

"They give us so much and allow us to earn so much responsibility and trust," Stratelak said.

Stratelak does not volunteer for just any organization, he said. They are usually groups whose mission he believes in.

After being dragged out on the day after Thanksgiving 12 years ago, he decided the farm's role as a living-history farm and the forest preserve's purpose was a good one.

"I just love the place," he said. "That's what it comes down to. It's just a fantastic place to just be. I walked down the lane and smelled the smoke coming down from the farmhouse and fell in love with it."

Just as several years earlier he'd fallen in love with a fellow volunteer.