Books & Brunch 2012

Co-chairs Meg Cooper and Maureen Hegarty

The 16th annual Books & Brunch luncheon and literary event supported 

Assistance League^® of Chicagoland West’s mission to deliver education and outreach programs that help transform lives in local suburbs by providing essential kitchen equipment for families leaving homelessness for independent living; new winter coats, hats and gloves for school kids in need and literacy backpacks for Head Start sites and low-income elementary schools. 

Just over 400 guests attended this year. They purchased books and mingled with our authors, then listened to luncheon presentations by Laura Caldwell, a Chicago trial attorney and author of the Izzy McNeil mysteries; historical novelist Margaret George and Paul Virant, chef/owner of Vie Restaurant in Western Springs. NBC 5 reporter Dick Johnson was our program emcee once again.

Total receipts for the day came to $108,500.

2012-13 Membership

Operation Early Reading 

Operation School Bell^®

Operation New Start

Philanthropic Programs 

On Display 

Nancy Newell at Early Bird raffle

Meg Cooper and Ricki Lessig at check-in

Nancy Newell and Trish Reider

Volunteers Stephanie Sexauer and Katie Hegarty

Courtney Crowder and Marie Pikul from Printers Row

Michelle Kovach of Bella Cosa Jewelers, 
recipient of the 2012 Assistance League Distinguished Donor Award 

Laurie Cleary and Pat Mrozek

Emily Cleary (right)

Linda Gonnella checks in 

Paula Whitelaw (right)

Guests Chris and Ly Hotchkin

Fernando Valentino and Jamie Marucha at eBay table

eBay sales have been lucrative venture for ALCW

Marguerite Spangehl and Marilyn Krafthefer

Marianne Cortopassi, Micki Rush, Nancy England

Judy Casten, Meg Cooper, Sally Parsons

Maria Kim, Heather Laughman, Marie Rossi

Sandra Ver Beek, Maureen Hegarty, Becky Moats

Anderson's Bookshops sold books by
our three authors: Laura Caldwell, Margaret George and Paul Virant

Linda Legner with Margaret George, Paul Virant, Laura Caldwell

Beth Waldo enters jewelry raffle

Al Sunseri, HSC Family Services, with Diane Kurtz

Paul Virant chats with guests 

Barb Christopher with friends 

Phyllis Young, Nancy Newell, Diane Mrozek

Barb Keller with Mark Billings, CHAD

Ellen Pfoetz, Laurie Cleary, Jennifer Ward and friend

Janelle Barcelona and Carol Simlar, PADS

Sheryl Thomson, Elodie Cassidy, Janie Gold

Boutique Shopping

Yvonne Morongiello and Amanda Kunzer, Catholic Charities

Raffle Baskets 

Laura Caldwell with guests

Silent Auction

Margaret George book signing

Diane Kurtz and Margaret George

Boutique

Marianne Cortopassi and Dee Dugo

Joan and Al Sunseri HCS Family Services 

State Representative Patty Bellock (center) and friends

Marty Vexter and Carlene Motto

Sally Rozak mans membership table

Jeanne Eber, Betty Cronin, Nancy England

Lauren and Dick Johnson

ALCW President Heather Laughman with Dick Johnson

Joanna Williams, Deb Newman, Ricki Lessig

Mary Parsons and Jan McGivern

Trish Reider and Jo Shaken

Karen Stewart, Pam Howe, Bridge Communities

Susan Prudden and Tara Silvan, La Grange School District 102

MC Dick Johnson opens the program 

Heather Laughman speaks about ALCW

Madelon Pearlman receives 2012 Ada Edwards Laughlin Award

Madelon Pearlman and Heather Laughman

Meg Cooper picks grand jewelry winner while Bella Cosa's Michelle Kovach's looks on

And the winner is...Pat Mrozek

Nancy Munoz, principal, North School Villa Park, speaks about Operation School Bell and the impact the program has on students who have higher self-esteem and better school attendance thanks to the new coats, hats and gloves 

Dick Johnson encourages guests to Fund the Cause

Linda Legner introduces authors

Margaret George

Paul Virant

Laura Caldwell

Mary Parsons in The Hinsdalean

Hinsdale, Illinois | Thursday, November 01, 2012

                               60 SECONDS

MARY PARSONS

EARNED A DEGREE IN CHEMICAL ENGINEERING FROM THE IMPERIAL COLLEGE IN LONDON • HUSBAND HUGH WORKS FOR BP • HAS LIVED IN ENGLAND, SCOTLAND AND NEW ORLEANS • MOM TO NIKKI AND GARETH

   Volunteering with Assistance League Chicagoland West appealed to Mary Parsons for one simple reason.
   “I liked the idea of it being a hands-on volunteer organization,” she said.
   “You’re not just writing a check. You’re not just doing a fundraiser. We actually make the money at the fundraisers and we spend the money on our programs.”
   The group’s next fundraiser, Books and Brunch on Nov. 13, will help the chapter fund its three programs. The group equips kitchens for people moving from transitional housing into a new home, buys coats for schoolchildren in need and reads to kids in Head Start.
   Volunteers actually shop for and assemble the kitchen equipment and buy and deliver the coats.
   “We see the smiles on the faces of the kids as they’re getting them,” Parsons said.
   While this area is fairly affluent, plenty of need exists in the league’s service area of western Cook and eastern DuPage counties.
   “We sort of start in Hinsdale and go in concentric circles out,” she said. “We certainly do some coats in Hinsdale and Burr Ridge and Westmont (and) Downers. We go as far as Villa Park and Lombard.”
   Parsons and a friend are contributing a raffle basket for Books and Brunch whose items hit home. The theme is Travel in Style, a concept the native of England is all too familiar with.
   Her husband, Hugh, works for BP, and job transfers have taken the family back and forth across the Atlantic for two decades.
   The couple first moved to the States in the early 1990s when daughter Nikki was a toddler. They lived in Washington, D.C., and then moved to New Orleans, where son Gareth was born. They went back to England, came to Hinsdale for the first time in 2000, then moved to Scotland and returned to Hinsdale in 2005.
“I think the first time we moved, which was back in ’92, was very difficult,” she said. “You didn’t have the Internet. You weren’t able to Google your newcomers club.
   “I didn’t know the difference between a Walmart and a Macy’s,” she added.    “Those brandy things didn’t mean anything to me.”
   Parsons found Newcomers and Neighbors of the Greater Hinsdale Area when she was looking for other women who played golf. As a new resident, she often heard about book clubs or other groups that women she met belonged to, but she wasn’t always invited to join.
   “I like to think that we are open to anybody to join our bunco group or come to our lunch group or come to our social event,” said Parsons, who currently is the group’s president. “Hopefully you’ll find people who enjoy the same things as you.”
   She also started a new group through the PTO at Hinsdale Central, while her son was a student there, to link the families of students transferring in with other families who were familiar with the district.
   “We thought it was nice to have somebody they could call about what do they wear for homecoming,” she said.
   Parsons, who worked for Shell while she was living in England, has enjoyed having time to participate in volunteer work, something that is less common in her home country.
   “People in this community are very generous with their money and time,” she said.

by Pamela Lannom

Books & Brunch in The Doings

Books and brunch is fun for a cause

 Sara Clarkson dateline October 26, 2012 5:26PM
 

Once a year I consider myself a lady who lunches.

I dress up, put on a smile, grab the checkbook and head to the annual Books and Brunch to join hundreds of other women, many of whom are just like me and can’t resist the urge to do something that involves both books and eating for an excellent cause. I will be there again on Tuesday, Nov. 13.

Books and Brunch is the fundraiser for the Hinsdale-based Assistance League of Chicagoland West, the local chapter of Assistance League which directly serves the Greater Hinsdale/Clarendon Hills/Burr Ridge area, including Darien, Willowbrook, Western Springs, Lombard, West Chicago and Villa Park.

The 60-odd members of the league are women who enjoy putting their brains, hearts and hands to work serving the community. These are the women who get things done in other organizations and institutions throughout our community as well.

Meg Cooper and Maureen Hegarty, for example, are Books and Brunch co-chairs again. Jamie Marucha of Clarendon Hills joined the league earlier this year when she was looking for something to “fill the void” with her kids now off to college. Since then she has worked with the league’s Operation School Bell, which in the past several months has provided 1,728 elementary school students from 24 DuPage County schools — including students from Hinsdale and Clarendon Hills — with new winter coats, hats and gloves.

The work has been so rewarding, she enthused, because of getting to know the other league members when packing the coats, hats and gloves and also because of working directly with the children.

As to the “Books” part of the event, once again the authors are excellent. Margaret George is known to fans of historically accurate fiction as the writer of long but engaging and well-researched novels on Cleopatra, King Henry VIII and Mary Queen of Scots, to name a few. Elizabeth I: A Novel is her most recent work and was published to very good reviews in 2011.

Local restaurateur and Hinsdale resident Paul Virant has a well-deserved following, and this year he has published The Preservation Kitchen: The Craft of Making and Cooking with Pickles, Preserves, and Aigre-doux with Kate Leahy. The chef and force behind Vie Restaurant in Western Springs will speak on cooking and writing.

Mystery writer Laura Caldwell once worked as a Chicago civil trial lawyer. She has created the Izzy McNeil mysteries and has also written the nonfiction book Long Way Home: A Young Man Lost in the System and the Two Women Who Found Him, the account of a Chicago teen who was coerced into confessing to a crime he did not commit and spent more than five years in jail before Caldwell and another attorney helped free him.

As in past years, Books and Brunch will be held at The Abbington on Butterfield Road and Route 53 in Glen Ellyn. Doors open at 10 a.m. There are tables and tables with fabulous silent auction items, a boutique with more than a dozen vendors selling everything from belts and bags to Santa Clauses, jewelry of all sorts and distinctive clothing. Of course the featured authors will be there to sign copies of their books.

Tickets for Books and Brunch cost $80 each. There are a variety of raffle tickets and prizes. For more information and to buy tickets online, visit www.alcw.org. the league’s offices are located on 120 E. Ogden Ave. in Hinsdale. The phone number is (630) 321-2529.

Lots to be thankful for at Westmore

Diane Kurtz on the right

Operation School Bell traveled to  Lombard for one of the final fittings of the season.  OSB outfitted 1728 students in 24 schools this fall.

Westmore School 

Lombard

Diane Mrozek

Smiling faces all around 

Lots of help at Anne M. Jeans School

Leif Johnson Moving saves our backs

We had lots of help and a great group of grateful students at Anne M. Jeans School in Willowbrook. The crew from Leif Johnson Moving did the job we used to do, transporting and carrying all the heavy boxes into the schools.  Social workers Meghan Radtke and Lynn Moynihan were good leaders and even better assistants, shuttling in classes of kids and pitching in to help when all the ALCW volunteers were zipping up coats.

Meghan Radtke and Lynn Moynihan

This picture tells the OSB story

Mary Parsons

Meghan helps out, Jamie Marucha in the foreground

Anne M. Jeans School 

Willowbrook

 Friends 

Having Fun

Before the Snow Flies

Handsome young men

Jamie Marucha

Site Coordinator Diane Kurtz

Operation School Bell – A New Member’s Perspective

Linda Legner and Linda Gonnella

An Open Letter from Jamie Marucha

A bit less than a year ago, Meg Cooper and I were talking at a high school coffee, about senior activities, college applications and the approaching graduation of our youngest children. I mentioned that I was looking for a new adventure for myself too, as an empty nester. Meg had just the right answer –Assistance League of Chicagoland West.

The busy season of ALCW’s Operation School Bell program has been the perfect fit. As I packed my own two children off to college, I embraced the OSB program to provide warm winter wear to more than 1700 school children in need.

The camaraderie I have found in this group of OSB volunteers has been a blessing! Who could be lonely when surrounded by friendly conversations during the OSB weekly coat packing sessions? So many of the ALCW members participate in OSB; it has been a great way to get to know everyone quickly.

I am especially grateful for the opportunity to work alongside two women who are an inspiration, the Co-Chairs of OSB, Linda Gonnella and Linda Legner. Linda Legner has been a wonder, negotiating complex distribution agreements with two dozen schools, the movers and the ALCW site coordinators, while also juggling her other volunteer duties for ALCW. Linda Gonnella is a charter member of ALCW, participating since 1995, and after all the OSB program work is complete, I hope she’ll tell me the remarkable story of this organization’s beginning. This year, she personally selected thousands of stylish new coats, hats and gloves for the children, spent untold hours creating a spreadsheet and labels with each child’s name and size, and has been at the ALCW warehouse every week to organize and oversee our packing efforts.

The dedication of these women is impressive, as is the committed involvement of so many members, each of us sensing that we own the OSB program and working hard to ensure its success.

Packing and preparing were fun. But, I must say that the biggest reward comes when we meet the children. We offer a bright red or blue bag to each child. Their eyes wide and shiny, they open the ALCW bags like an unexpected present. “This is my favorite color!” they exclaim, and “I love this coat!” How can your heart not be warmed by the thought of all these children frolicking in the snow this winter in their brand new coats!