ECCO raising money with calendar
Some Elginites recently took it all off in the name of Mother Nature.
The Elgin Climate Change Organization, or ECCO, recently released a whimsical 18-month calendar to raise money and increase awareness of what people can do to help the environment.
The calendar is informative, looking at what 18 area residents, 14 of which are from Elgin, have done in locally and in their everyday lives to be "green" and environmentally conscious.
The calendar is also a "Calendar Girls" of sorts for the Fox Valley area, as older men and women go au naturale with strategically placed recycling bins, rain barrels, compost buckets and other items.
"I really thought we would have a problem getting models. (But) people said 'We'd like to do this,'" said Sigi Psimenos, an Elgin resident and ECCO vice president. "We like to look at (the calendar) as whimsical while giving people a solid message."
Psimenos said the group, formerly called Slow Global Warming Elgin, hatched the idea in August as a different way to raise awareness.
The project wrapped up on Oct. 17.
Psimenos, who is featured for September 2009, hopes the calendar prods people to rethink where products comes from, how they're made and where they go when they're thrown away.
Calendars are $10 each and tax deductible. Psimenos said more than 380 out of 1,000 have been sold and if the group runs out, more can be printed.
For more information or to buy a calendar, visit slowglobalwarming-elgin.com or call (312) 953-8216 or (847) 741-7375. They also are available at two Elgin locations: Books on Sunset, 1100 South St.; and the In the Neighborhood Deli, 185 N. Edison St.
For the record, my calendar is hanging in my little office cubicle already.
Raising money, raising the bar: Congratulations to Lynn Arnieri, who surpassed her goal of netting more than $2,000 in pledges for the Nov. 8 Chicago Walkabout to raise money to benefit the Sjogrens Syndrome Foundation.
The St. Charles woman is one of an estimated 4 million-plus people who have the autoimmune disease.
Pronounced "show-grins," the syndrome mainly affects women by having the body attack its own moisture producing glands.
Early symptoms include dry eyes and a dry mouth and overall it can lead to very serious long-term health problems.
Some afflicted with it describe it as a flu that never goes away.
This is not the first event in which Arnieri has helped raise money to help find a cure.
She and her husband, Terry, organized a dinner in Geneva in 2007 that raised $10,000.
If you're still interested in helping Arnieri, you can donate online by visiting www.firstgiving.com/lynnarnieri.
I've interviewed her in the past and I can confidently write that she is a dedicated and determined woman who is giving 100 percent despite the pain and limitations caused by the disease.