Meet Bloomingdale Park Distict's volunteer MVP

As a coach and manager in the Bloomingdale Baseball and Softball Association, Frank Saverino Jr. wasn't satisfied with the fields maintained by the Bloomingdale Park District.

But Saverino didn't complain. Instead, he became the association's liaison to the park district, kept park staff informed of the teams' needs, and got equipment to work on the fields himself.

“We could not do what we do without volunteers like Frank Saverino,” said Ed Reidy, the park district's director of parks and planning. “His sweat equity has helped us a great deal.”

But Saverino's involvement with the park district didn't stop there. Three years ago, he joined the Bloomingdale Parks Foundation to help raise money for the parks and funding to allow needy families enjoy park programs. Earlier this year, he led his traveling baseball team of 10-year-olds in providing funds and labor to erect a memorial flagpole in Springfield Park. The memorial honors Marine Sgt. Jean Claude Nolan, a Bloomingdale resident who enlisted in the service after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and who was killed in a car accident in 2008.

Saverino's actions led the park district to nominate him for Outstanding Citizen Volunteer of the Year for Illinois Association of Park Districts. Bloomingdale Park District Executive Director Carrie Haupert said the honor, bestowed in October, was well-deserved.

“I've been in the leisure service industry for 20 years and I've never met anybody quite like Frank,” she said. “He gives of himself so unselfishly and doesn't expect anything in return.”

Saverino said giving to others was instilled in him by his father, Carol Stream Mayor Frank Saverino Sr. He admits he didn't always like doing for others as a kid.

“I never understood until I got older,” he said. “I look at him now. You know that makes you happy.”

A baseball player throughout his college years, Saverino got involved with coaching before his own two kids were born. He said he wants to have the same impact on players' lives that his Little League coach had on his. So when he was asked about helping create a memorial for Nolan, he enlisted his baseball team to raise $2,800 for the project and had them dig the 5½-foot hole for the foundation.

“That was my way of giving the kids a little memory that they would remember the rest of their lives,” he said.

Employed in the family food brokerage business, Saverino uses the warehouse to provide batting practice for his players. He recruited Dr. Erin Bucat of Bloomingdale to teach the kids about healthy habits on a volunteer basis.

As for helping to maintain the ball fields, Saverino knows that's not his job. Still he can be seen in his own golf cart and trailer dragging them — sometimes before park staff get there. He did the research to help the park district purchase a used utility vehicle and helped find a landscape trailer that was donated to the park district.

“I do it for the kids,” Saverino said. “The needs of the baseball association were bigger than the park district (could provide).”

Saverino has approached serving on the Bloomingdale Parks Foundation board with the same gusto. He organized a helicopter drop of 500 golf balls into Springfield Park that raised $8,000 for the foundation's campaign to renovate the park.

He's organized car shows, donated his own White Sox season tickets as raffle prizes, and attained food donations to feed more than 300 people at the foundation's first 5K Run/Walk and Oktoberfest.

“It gives you that balance in life to make you feel you're making a difference,” he said.