Community Corner

Organizers Volunteer Ideas for ShareFest 2011

A group met for the first time Tuesday to talk about the annual volunteering event in September.

Although ShareFest isn't until September, community members started to share ideas for New Lenox's annual volunteering event this week.

Organizers met Tuesday to start mapping ideas and plans for the fifth-annual ShareFest, which will be Saturday, Sept. 10. The goal is to create a large-scale effort that helps people in need throughout the village with a number of service projects and donation drives. The first meeting served mostly to put names with faces of people interested in helping, representing churches, government agencies and other various organizations.

"Whatever the deepest needs are in the community, we're called to meet those needs," said Gary Cheney, the planning committee chairman. "It's sharing love."

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Before volunteering ideas for this year's ShareFest, the committee reviewed some things that worked last year. There were a number of collection drives: Volunteers collected 650 items for hospitalized marines in Afghanistan as well as 902 books, 2,000 clothing items and 5,486 food items that were distributed throughout the community.

There was also a restoration project that removed 370 cubic yards of brush with the help of volunteers and a recycling drive that brought in about 1,000 pounds of electronics and 82 contrainers of paint. Finally, 22 service projects were conducted for specific people with needs. People who have a special need may submit theirs on the ShareFest website.

Find out what's happening in New Lenoxwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

"The totals are something, but we have to keep to the foundation of why we're doing this," Cheney said.

People attending the meeting were excited to get working again on the even and find new ways to help even more people.

"I've been doing three years with ShareFest and I've enjoyed every one of them," pastor Hope Sibson of Central Presbyterian Church said.

The ideas discussed were very preliminary, but the committee will meet the last Tuesday of each month this year to refine them. A couple ideas were including a job fair and a health fair. Cheney said a job fair had been done before but is definitely something to consider given the economic climate.

A health fair could potentially include people on site to screen participants for diabetes and cholesterol, check people's vision and possibly even a large blood drive.

Another thing ShareFest would like to do is a household hazardous waste collection. Because of quick setup, heavy equipment and pricey disposal, it costs between $30,000 and $40,000 to put on a one-day collection, and Cheney is hoping the village and township for the event. But Kathy Johnson, family services manager for New Lenox Township, said there are budget concerns with a proposal to spend $5,000 on the collection.

"It doesn't look promising at all," Johnson said. "The township board is working to appropriate that money but we're not certain."

Regardless, Cheney said he'd like to find money elsewhere to help the collection become a part of ShareFest this year. Other than those proposals, the Rev. Don Bates of St. Jude's Catholic Church asked whether a larger service project could be done outside the smaller, more individualized projects that have been done in the past.

"What the problem was in the past was the balance," Cheney said. "We had people who had needs and people who wanted to help. But with more involvement it's easier for us to go out and do more."

To get involved with ShareFest, sign up through its website or contact Gary Cheney at gcheney@sharefestnewlenox.com. The planning committee meets next at noon on Tuesday, March 29 in the Village Hall community room.


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