Community gift-giving program, grants and more.
Vernon Hills
Donations: State Rep. Carol Sente, D-Vernon Hills, is hosting her annual Cell Phones for Soldiers Drive to help service men and women call home to their families this holiday season. Throughout the rest of December and early January, Sente will be collecting gently used cell phones from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. weekdays at her full-time constituent service office, 294 Evergreen Drive. For every gently used phone donated with a value of more than $5, a soldier deployed overseas will receive up to two and one-half hours of free talk time to call home to their loved ones. For more information, call 847-478-9909 or email [email protected].
Gurnee
Gift-giving: For the 4th consecutive year, officers with the Gurnee Police Department purchased Christmas presents for six different military families in need through its Angel Tree program. Additionally, the money needed to ship the gifts was raised through an extension of the department’s No-Shave November fundraiser called Double Down December. Gurnee officers were allowed to keep their November beards for the month of December and were encouraged to make a recommended donation of $40 to the Gurnee Fraternal Order of Police Social Lodge No. 266. The Social Lodge then used the money raised to not only ship the gifts, but to also purchase gift cards for the parents in each of the families. In total, more than $1,900 was raised in December. Each military family had a significant financial hardship and substantial challenges beyond their control. Most of the families are in the midst of deployment over the holidays, but in certain cases the officers also helped families of wounded warriors and other troops at home but in very difficult circumstances, making it impossible to provide Christmas gifts for their children. One family was from Zion, and the rest were from different locations throughout the U.S. Care packages were also shipped overseas to deployed family members. Each family was selected after being recommended by the non-profit charity soldiersangels.org.
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Lake County
Grant and appointments: The Stand Strong Coalition announced their newly-appointed board of directors. The newly appointed members include: Chairman — Claudia Kasten, chief of the Juvenile Division of the Lake County State’s Attorney’s Office; vice-chairman — Chief Peter Kinsey, of the Lincolnshire Police Department; treasurer — Kristin Hall Sliwicki; co-secretary — Jackie Weine; co-secretary — Karyn Gitler; community member at-large — Cristina Cortesi, substance abuse prevention coordinator, Stevenson High School; community member at-large — Martin Sussman, Deborah H. Stern. In addition, the Stand Strong Coalition recently received a Drug Free Community grant from the Office of the National Drug Control Policy in Washington, D.C. The coalition will receive $625,000 over the next 5 years to complete their initiatives. The initiatives include implementation of strategies to reduce underage drinking, marijuana and prescription drug use for the youth in the community. The Stand Strong coalition has formed partnerships with local police departments and village boards in order to further expand on strategies that focus on social host ordinances and implementation of prescription drug drop boxes in conjunction with the Lake County Underage Drinking and Drug Prevention Task Force. Awareness is another of the coalition’s initiatives. Stand Strong is a community-based coalition dedicated to preventing underage drinking and drug use for the youth in District 125 (Adlai E Stevenson) community. For more information, contact Jamie Epstein at [email protected].
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