How Elk Grove man is working to help struggling butterflies

This is Good News Sunday, a compilation of some of the more upbeat and inspiring stories published recently by the Daily Herald:

Ned Bruns has built a butterfly playground with a purpose in his Elk Grove Village backyard.

"The monarchs are in great decline," Bruns said in explaining that purpose. "Every (person) needs the pollinators to survive."

The retired carpenter has filled his suburban yard with flowers and valuable milkweed plants, the only place monarch butterflies lay their eggs, in an effort to help reverse decline.

Bruns walks a boardwalk between his gardens every day to harvest the tiny eggs and raise them into adult butterflies that he releases into the wild. He said that while an egg in the wild has a 5% chance of survival, he can produce results far better than Mother Nature.

"I can get 75 to 80% maturing to butterflies," Bruns said. "If I can get an egg maturing to a butterfly, more than likely it would have died in nature. And now those monarchs are making more eggs."

He's handed out $200 in milkweed plants to friends and neighbors, and raised and released 657 monarch butterflies last year alone, his most successful season so far.

"I show as many people as possible my passion to raise pollinators," he said. "I hope my efforts, along with those of others, will help them be around for our future generations."

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Des Plaines library staffer lauded for COVID-19 project

A Des Plaines Public Library staffer is being honored for creating a digital collection about life during the COVID-19 pandemic and for related work.

Digital Projects Librarian Steven Giese will receive the 2021 Illinois Library Association's Reference Services Award.

Teaming with the Des Plaines History Center, Giese created the "Making History Together" campaign and the "Life During COVID-19" project, in which he's using digital technology to collect and preserve Des Plaines residents' stories and artifacts that reflect how the pandemic affects their daily lives.

It includes written accounts of stay-at-home orders, essays from high school students, photographs of drive-through graduations and socially distanced celebrations, and other mementos.

"We tend to think that history is a record of the actions of a few extraordinary people, but that isn't true," Giese said. "Everyone's lived experience has an effect on the experiences of everyone else around them and are worth preserving."

The stories and photos are available for online viewing at desplainesmemory.org.

For the full story, click here.

Addiction recovery leads Cary resident to life of volunteer work

Cary resident Mike Goldman began using drugs when he was in seventh grade, but professional recovery services and decades of volunteer work have helped him maintain a life of sobriety for more than 40 years, he said.

Goldman never thought he had low self-esteem until he was away from drugs. Now, 44 years sober, gratitude is the 70-year-old's greatest source of motivation, he said.

"The simplest way I can put it is I think if you really, really deeply feel gratitude, it's really hard to feel miserable," Goldman said.

Coaching soccer and bowling for the Northern Illinois Special Recreation Association, volunteering with the Cary Soccer Association and Red Cross, and bringing food and coffee to homeless communities, Goldman expresses his gratitude through acts of service for his community.

"He just commits like nobody else," said Catherine Bott, NISRA's former manager of support staff.

Goldman has coached soccer for more than 30 years, and said the sport has become "a passion."

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Wheaton neighborhood honors letter carrier retiring after four decades

At age 20, Larry Emma was working his first job for John Deere and planning on a career in mechanics when one of his parents' friends said the post office was hiring.

"They even put my name in for me. I didn't even go in and do it. A year-and-a-half later, they called me," he said.

For the next 41½ years, Emma, a Wheaton native, delivered mail to friends and neighbors - many of whom became like family, if the crowd who showed up for his recent retirement celebration is any indication.

About 100 neighbors in the Danada West subdivision joined Emma and his family for a noontime street corner gathering during the last day on his mail route, sharing hugs and memories with their much-loved letter carrier.

He's been doing curbside deliveries there from a mail truck for about 15 years, following walking routes in the first part of his career.

"When I came out here this morning and started delivering my route and saw a balloon on every single box, I knew I was in for something. It's fantastic. I really appreciate everything everybody did," said Emma, who grew emotional from the tributes. "I'm just doing my job."

For the full story, click here.

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