Tag: Volunteer of the Year

Anita Hohenstein, Edgebrook Covenant Church

After retiring from the AT&T regulatory department in 2008, Anita Hohenstein became more active in Edgebrook Covenant by volunteering at A Just Harvest. Anita has done everything from plating food to serving patrons to cleaning up. She loves to interact with the patrons and enjoys bringing the food to them. She continues to volunteer at A Just Harvest because she believes that she has a servant’s heart and likes the feeling of serving those in need.

Anita grew up in La Porte, Indiana then moved to Chicago, then to Milwaukee and back to Chicago with her husband Tom. Tom, a retired captain from the Chicago Fire Department, and Anita have two daughters – Emily and Ana. Ana has also volunteered at AJH with Anita. Together the family loves to travel to places such as Guatemala, Italy, Spain, California, and Colorado.

Anita also volunteers at the American Cancer Society by driving patients to their appointments. She also volunteered at the bakery at Misericordia. In her free time, Anita likes to spend time in the garden, cook, and read for her book club. She is the co-leader of the crocheting/knitting ministry at Edgebrook Covenant Church known as Crafty Angels, which has donated bags and bags of hand knit scarves and hats for our patrons. Anita also considers herself a foodie and loves to eat Thai and Indian food.

Flora Coleman, Rogers Park Presbyterian Church

Flora Coleman has been preparing delicious casseroles and spaghetti for A Just Harvest through Rogers Park Presbyterian Church for two years and has absolutely loved it. The dishes are hearty meals and Flora is proud to lend her talent to a great cause. She finds it rewarding to volunteer at AJH because she is helping her own community. Flora believes that people truly need one another for support and encouragement and that AJH is a place where people can experience both.

Flora grew up with 9 brothers and sisters. She is married and has four children and a granddaughter. Flora has had a large passion for cooking since a young age when her grandmother taught her how to make fried chicken and greens. Flora’s favorite dish to make and eat is rib tips. In her free time Flora enjoys reading, cleaning, and helping out at Rogers Park Presbyterian.

Flora was born and raised in Chicago and has always found it important to help others, especially in the kitchen. AJH is special to Flora because it builds community and allows for people to relate with one another. Flora plans on adding on to her volunteer duties and by coming to the Community Kitchen to serve the food that she has prepared off-site for our patrons.

Kim Schuman and Kim Lattin, Willow Creek North Shore

Kim Schuman is the Willow Creek North Shore volunteer coordinator for her congregation’s service on the fourth Friday of every month. She recruits church members to plate and serve the chicken and rice dinner they serve that day.

Time at A Just Harvest is a family experience for Kim: her daughters, husband, and sister volunteer with her.  Family is very important to Kim and she loves spending time with them at church and home.  Kim has also brought many of her friends to volunteer at the Community Kitchen.

Kim is very active at Willow Creek. Kim and her family have helped do seed packing for the church, sending plant seeds to Zimbabwe to help start gardens. The plants include many types of vegetables like tomatoes and cabbage. In general, religion is valued in the Schuman household and participating at Willow Creek is central to their lives.

Kim was born and raised in Chicago and now lives in Niles. She is active in advocacy events for Lupus including a support group and a fundraising walk.

Kim loves AJH because of the friendly and familiar faces she gets to encounter. Kim finds hunger to be an important issue to combat because of her personal experience and the belief that everyone should have a support system in their lives.

Kim Lattin graciously donates the surplus food from a Thursday night pre-class dinner held at Willow Creek Community Church North Shore.

A Just Harvest gladly excepts donations of food left over from events on the same day or day after as long as it has not been on a buffet line and has been properly refrigerated.  The food comes from various restaurants in the Northfield area. Kim has been delivering this food for the last three years.

Kim takes the time to give to AJH because she wants to share the blessings in her life. She describes it as her humble gratitude. She has been volunteering on mission trips since she was young, but this is the first time she has led volunteer projects. She has also helped facilitate military care packages to Iraq and Afghanistan.

Kim has been at Willow Creek for eight years.  She truly loves her job and her coworkers. They describe her as humble and dependable.  Willow Creek members are always looking to Kim for advice or help. Kim is the co-leader of the divorce and separation recovery group at the church and also leads the 40+ singles group.

Kim enjoys traveling on vision trips with Willow Creek including a fantastic trip to Guatemala. Kim has also been to Argentina, Chile, and Europe. She has 2 children that currently reside in California. Kim grew up in Morton Grove and today lives in Glenview.

by Kristi Sanford

Editors Note: As we publish these volunteer profiles, it is amazing to reflect upon how many of our volunteers have been with us for more than a decade.  Monica and Julia have been working with us for 15 years!  Our staff and patrons are truly blessed to have such long-standing relationships with so many of our volunteers!  If you’d like to join with us to celebrate their gifts and help raise much needed funds for A Just Harvest, please purchase a ticket or make a donation to our 9th Annual Awards Banquet & Benefit on Sunday, October 14.

Monica Geocaris, Community Church of Wilmettte

Monica Geocaris was born and raised in northwest Kansas. After she left home, Monica lived in Denver where she met John, her future husband.  Although Colorado was near and dear to her heart, they relocated to Wilmette so John could enter the family business his father was anxious to retire from.  John’s dad founded Barnaby’s Pizza, and although the family sold the restaurant chain years ago, the company, Little Lady Foods, Inc., now contract manufactures fine food products for other companies under the direction of John and his brother.

Volunteering for A Just Harvest has been a part of Monica’s life for the past 15 years.  It’s ironic that she took over when another congregation member moved to Colorado.  Although she’s made a great life for herself in our fine Midwestern state, she still misses the West.  Knowing her neighbors are hungry makes her uncomfortable and that is what has driven her to help those in need.  That, and the example her parents set.  She likes Pastor Marilyn’s vision of being so successful at fixing the root causes of hunger and poverty that we can put ourselves out of business as a Community Kitchen.  But in the meantime, she plans to keep feeding the hungry.

Monica’s work at A Just Harvest includes organizing volunteers and delivering and serving a lasagna meal with other members and friends of Community Church of Wilmette on the second Wednesday of every month.  At this point, with the help of her other volunteers, it’s a well-oiled machine, and they enjoy dinner together at a nearby restaurant following their meal service.  Monica, along with Judy Smith, Debbie Sayles and Jeanne Winter,  also organized “Bella Notte” an Italian-themed fundraising dinner in her congregation’s hall. The event raised $8,000 for a Just Harvest from a combination of ticket sales, a silent auction and a live auction.

Monica has a Master Gardener Degree and an Ornamental Plants Certificate from the Chicago Botanic Garden.  She volunteers there in Plant Information and works part-time in garden design.  In the future, she would like offer her assistance in creating community gardens so that those who don’t usually have access to fresh produce can, at least seasonally.

Julia Joehl, St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church

Julia Joehl is the face of A Just Harvest at St. Augustine’s Episcopal Church of Wilmette.  She has been coordinating our partnership for more than 15 years, and every time she stands to make an announcement, congregation members know that she’ll be asking for additional volunteers.

Julia has been a special education teacher for pre-kindergarten students at a Chicago Public School in the Edison Park neighborhood for the last 21 years. Julia loves her work, saying “I work with children who have severe multiple disabilities and with their parents. My job is challenging and very rewarding. It’s the best job in the city.”

Julia and her husband Raymond, who is a general surgeon with the Veterans Administration, have six children and two grandchildren.  Three of their six children are blind and have benefitted tremendously from amazing teachers and the commitment of the North Shore public school districts to meet the needs of children with disabilities.

At the end of this year, Julia will be turning over her responsibility for coordinating St. Augustine’s service at A Just Harvest to Mary Whitely.  We are so grateful to Julia for all her years of service!

Terry Carmichael, Sacred Heart Parish

Terry Carmichael has been volunteering at A Just Harvest through Sacred Heart Parish in Winnetka for the past ten years.  As with most ministries, it is in giving that we receive:  Each time Terry serves, she is certain her sharing of time and energy is nothing compared to the joy she receives from this experience.

Helayne Levin, Temple Judea Mizpah

by Rebecca Helberg, A Just Harvest Summer Intern

Editor’s Note: If you’d like to join us in celebrating these Volunteers of the Year at our 9th Annual Awards Banquet & Benefit, visit our home page for more information.

Bob Robinson, St. Giles Episcopal Church, Northbrook

After retiring as a patent council attorney in 1995, Bob Robinson began to give his time to A Just Harvest in 1998. As a Christian, Bob believes that one of his purposes in life is to give his time to help others. He delivers food about 8 times a month to 3 different organizations in the Chicagoland area as a representative of St. Giles Church. On Wednesday Bob comes to A Just Harvest to drop off food from various donors including Sunset Foods, a large contributor in Northbrook. He became involved with A Just Harvest when Polly Badger asked him to be the director of the soup kitchen ministry.

One of Bob’s favorite connections is the ability to take excess meat from A Just Harvest and deliver it to New Life Baptist Church on the south side. A Just Harvest receives more produce and New Life is able to receive a much needed shipment of meat. Bob remembers what struck him the most when he first started volunteering at A Just Harvest (then named the Good News Community Kitchen) was he was not aware of how many people in the area were in need of assistance. He also finds is amazing that A Just Harvest has expanded its services to community organizing and economic development.

Bob began volunteering in Philadelphia in 1959 through Big Brothers. Since then he has held various leadership positions in Kiwanis in both the Chicago Lakeview and downtown chapters, recorded stories for the blind and dyslexic, and lead adoption procedures pro bono. Bob has a wife, 3 children, and 7 grandchildren. In his free time he loves to read, watch baseball, and tend to his tomato plants. Bob is both a Red Sox and Cubs fan after living both on the East Coast and Midwest and also had a friendly relationship with baseball star Ted Williams. Bob loves devoting his time to charitable organizations and A Just Harvest has truly benefited from all of his hard work.

Kathy Cole, North Shore United Methodist Church, Glencoe

Kathy Cole, a social worker in Northfield, has been taking on many different roles in her 7 years volunteering with A Just Harvest. She has done the food shopping, cooked, and served to the patrons of the Community Kitchen. As a member of the North Shore United Methodist Church, Kathy enjoys coming with her church four or five times a year on the fifth Wednesday of the month. North Shore UMC brings chicken, rice, corn, fruit salad, cookies, lettuce, and ranch dressing from Costco.

Kathy has a passion for social services and enjoys being at AJH because there is a respect for the clientele and dignity in the Community Kitchen. She knows that the food is good, people are eating, and that the atmosphere is full of caring community members at AJH. She views AJH as following through with an important commitment of feeding those that are hungry. Kathy loves to volunteer at AJH with her two daughters and husband.

Kathy believes hunger is an important issue to tackle because it is a basic human right. She enjoys working to make sure that people are provided with basic needs such as food and housing.

Kathy is originally from Ohio and moved to Chicago in 1974.  She currently lives in Glencoe and loves to travel, read and garden in her free time.

Gail Potter, Trinity United Methodist, Wilmette

Gail Potter has been volunteering at A Just Harvest for over a year and a half and has had a truly rewarding experience. Shortly after joining Trinity United Methodist Church, Gail was asked by meal coordinator Sarah Jacobs to donate her time and has consistently been volunteering since then at the Community Kitchen. As an involved Trinity Church member, Gail enjoys attending and organizing church events. Whether it is helping plan the summer ice cream social or doing odds and ends around Trinity, Gail does what she can to help the Trinity Church community.

Gail loves working behind the kitchen counter and appreciates the patrons thanking volunteers. The intimate interaction and mutual respect for all those involved in the Community Kitchen is what Gail loves about A Just Harvest. The friendly conversation and tolerance that is seen at the kitchen is what keeps Gail coming back.

Fighting hunger is important to Gail because she believes that in the United States, Americans should take care of their own and do what they can to eradicate the widespread problem of hunger. Gail thinks it’s significant to see the face of hunger and open up one’s eyes to the obstacles that many encounter. Gail has always enjoyed working with head chef Rosario and making sure that the details that happen behind the counter are not forgotten. Gail and fellow Trinity volunteers sing spiritual hymns while preparing and serving the delicious food.

by Kristi Sanford, Director of Communications

Note: Over the next several Monday’s we’ll be sharing profiles of the 2012 Community Kitchen Volunteers of the Year.  Each of our kitchen partners who donate food and organize volunteers on a monthly basis have been invited to select a volunteer of the year to be recognized in our blog and at our Annual Awards Banquet and Benefit.

Fran Evans is the Volunteer of the Year from Union Church of Hinsdale.  She organizes the volunteers and shops for the food each month.  Fran credits her involvement at A Just Harvest to one of her very dearest friends who persistently invited her to serve on the congregation’s mission board.  Each mission board member is responsible to be the liaison between the congregation and one of the community agencies they help support, and so Fran is UCH’s liaison to A Just Harvest.  (Service and mission are at the heart of Union Church of Hinsdale, and that is one reason why we are giving the church our 2012 Mary Byrd and Winston Garnett Service Award.)

This same dear friend invited Fran to go to Mississippi just six weeks after Hurricane Katrina.  They were responding to a call that Loving Neighbors had put out through the United Church of Christ seeking volunteers to collect and distribute supplies to hurricane victims.  Fran says experience was life-changing. She and her friend camped in a field in rural Mississippi, the only women in the entire camp.  They had practiced setting up their tent at home, but when arrived they couldn’t figure out how to get it right.  Laughing, their fellow campers quickly fixed their tent and got to know one another.

Her time in Mississippi was as much a ministry of presence as it was of sharing basic material goods that residents had done without since the storm.  As they handed out basic necessities to people who were living in tents, reluctant to leave their property and eager to finish clean up and restoration, they listened to harrowing survival stories of people trapped in attics or floating in rafts tied to tree tops fearing nearby alligators and contamination.  They cried a lot of tears with the Katrina survivors and shared a lot of love with them.

They went back a year later and lived in a FEMA trailer for 8 days. Fran says, “I definitely got an appreciation of what conditions  the victims had to deal with.” They had gathered up computers , printers, etc & had a pickup truck full of these items to give to people that needed them.  They talked to a lot of residents of the town to see what they needed so that they could send more after they returned home.  Fran still keeps in touch with one of the hurricane survivors and her family.

Fran has also been on Union Church of Hinsdale’s Habitat for Humanity trips to Guatemala and two U.S. locations.

She says that volunteering at A Just Harvest meets her need to nurture others. She loves that it’s something the generations can do together.  On the day we spoke, her volunteers ranged from age 12-75.  Fran organizes about 85 unique UCH members to serve at A Just Harvest over the course of a year.

Fran knows that most of us are just a medical or weather related crisis from depleting our life savings or from becoming homeless, a belief that was reinforced on her post-Katrina trip to Mississippi.  When I asked what might have happened in her childhood to prepare her heart for service, she said simply that she remembers the generosity of her own parents to relatives and friends in their times of need.  She hopes that her granddaughter, just now old enough to serve at A Just Harvest, will have a similar experience with her.

Fran has two sons, a daughter-in-law and three grandchildren.  She’ll be the first to tell you that she’s very, very blessed and leads a very full life.  Supposedly retired after 27 years of designing kitchens and bathrooms, Fran estimates that she spends about 3 days a week at church which she describes as “much more working than praying”.  In fact, she is the co-chair for Union Church of Hinsdale’s annual garage sale which generates about $40,000 in revenue each year!  She also makes time for bowling, golf, yard work and (surprise) travel.