Good News Sunday: Facebook group grows into inclusive kids charity

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

When your child needs therapy to speak, eat, sit up, walk, make eye contact and reach other milestones, the outside world can be a scary place.

“I never really understood how isolating it was for some of these families. These families stay in their homes and they are very vulnerable,” said Beth Deiter, an Arlington Heights speech-language pathologist who worked 12 years at what is now Advocate Lutheran General Hospital in Park Ridge. She started her home-based therapy practice after she and her husband, Chris, had daughter Cecilia, now 10, and son Elliott, now 8. While neither of her children needed therapy, she saw the need to offer more support to those who do.

“I didn't know what to do, so I started a Facebook group,” Deiter said of her online effort five years ago. Today, her group at cityofsupport.org is a growing not-for-profit charity with C.I.T.Y., short for Children In Therapy and You.

“Delayed, disability, special needs — a lot of those words really turn off parents,” Deiter said. “So we went with children in therapy.”

Not wanting to limit the group to children diagnosed on the autism spectrum, with Down syndrome or some other developmental disorder, Deiter said everybody is welcome under the umbrella of her charity, which incorporated in 2018 and now boasts more than 3,500 members and no paid staffers.

“Our mission is to create a community online and in person,” she said.

For the full story, click here.

Inspired by MLK, seniors share thoughts of hope

“Life's most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?'”

That quote by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. inspired a group of residents at Friendship Village of Schaumburg to serve those in need — and this year, to showcase their own dreams.

For the past five years, residents of the retirement community who belonged to a group called Seniors Serving Seniors would gather to assemble nearly 200 sack lunches to be handed out to homeless people and other seniors outside of their community.

They included handwritten inspirational notes with the food. Because of the pandemic, the volunteers were unable to pack lunches this year. So Jeannette Magdaleno, Friendship Village's manager of Life Long Learning and Volunteers Services, focused instead on lifting the spirits of their own seniors.

Magdaleno and activity coordinator Amanda De La Matta created a Hall of Dreams in Friendship Village, where residents could showcase their thoughts.

Photos of the residents accompany the writings, and posters of Dr. King's inspirational quotes are also displayed. Eleven residents participated in the project, which hangs in the connecting wing between two independent living buildings.

For the full story, click here.

Pandemic adds twist to dancing competition

Last February's “Dancing with the Barrington Stars” featured professional dancers paired with amateurs competing live before a packed auditorium of 400 people, raising about $200,000 for the Barrington Area Council on Aging.

With pandemic restrictions, there is no crowded fundraiser this year.

“But it couldn't be ‘that's it' because it's critical to our funding,” says Terri Channer, Bacoa's executive director. Now in its fourth year, the fundraiser that mirrors the “Dancing with the Stars” TV show is Bacoa's biggest fundraiser of the year. By June, the agency had made the decision to do a virtual competition with a twist on the idea of teaming each amateur with a professional dancer from Bataille Academie of the Danse in Barrington.

The pros who normally would be dancing are doing the choreography, Channer says.

“I actually danced at Bataille studio when I was a young girl,” said Judy Gibbons, who grew up in Barrington and performed with the choir and in drama productions as a high school student.

For the full story, click here.

Dist. 220 superintendent its best of year in Lake

Brian Harris, superintendent of Barrington Area Unit District 220, was named Lake County's Superintendent of the Year for 2021.

The honor was bestowed by the Lake County Superintendents' Association, which includes 55 county superintendents who cited him as a role model and leader at the national, state and local levels.

Harris will retire June 30 after 34 years in public education and seven years as superintendent in District 220.

“His vision of having a social emotional dashboard for every student will leave a lasting legacy for years to come,” school board President Penny Kazmier. “Barrington 220 has been lucky to have him lead our district.”

For the full story, click here.

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