Anne Engelhardt stepping down from leadership of Kendall County PADS with gratitude and graciousness

 

  

By Tom Siebert
Assistant director for community relations
Public Action to Deliver Shelter (PADS) of Kendall County, IL

The first guest of Kendall County PADS was a 34-year-old recovering alcoholic and single mother of four. That was on the evening of Oct. 18, 2010.

Since then the homeless support group has helped a total of 474 guests, providing 11,006 overnight stays and serving 33,325 meals, including breakfasts, lunches, and dinners.

Those impressive numbers belie the inauspicious beginnings of the local PADS chapter, when most area residents were unaware that there were those who had no place to live in the sprawling, rustic county with a 2010 population of about 127,000.

“They didn’t know there were homeless people in our community––people were oblivious to it,” said Anne Engelhardt, who recently announced that this shelter season would be her last as executive director of the nonprofit organization.

Ms. Engelhardt herself became aware of the problem when Yorkville Congregational United Church of Christ (YCUCC), where she is a member, was visited by a liaison from the Grundy-Kendall Regional Office of Education, which had been tracking the number of homeless students in area schools.

Then Anne and a few other concerned citizens visited a Grundy County PADS site, following it up with letters to local churches and editors of weekly newspapers to see if there was support for aiding the area’s homeless.

Thus began a series of organizational meetings at YCUCC throughout the spring and summer of 2010, where the social issue was discussed by pastors and churchgoers from the community.

The meetings grew exponentially from 12 attendees to 18, to 80, to 170 at the first volunteers training session in September of that year.

“There was definitely something happening that was bigger than us,” Ms. Engelhardt recalled. “People would stand up and say, ‘I want this at my church.’ I felt like the Holy Spirit was leading us.”

Shortly thereafter, Kendall County’s health department, food pantry, and sheriff’s office offered their services. And seven churches subsequently volunteered to provide temporary shelter sites one night of the week during the six colder months of the year.

In addition to YCUCC, they were Cross Lutheran Church in Yorkville, Harvest New Beginnings church in Oswego, United Methodist Church of Plano, Trinity United Methodist Church in Yorkville, Church of the Good Shepherd in Oswego, and St. Luke’s Lutheran Church in Montgomery.

Six of those original seven churches will still be offering nutritious meals and a safe place to stay when PADS opens it tenth shelter season on Oct. 20. The seventh site is Parkview Christian Academy in Yorkville, which replaced United Methodist Church of Plano in 2017.

Over the past nine years, Kendall County PADS has widened the scope of the services that it  offers.

The first challenge was providing transportation so that guests who did not own cars could travel from site to site throughout the week. Since the county has no bus service, PADS partnered in 2011 with Kendall Area Transit to provide rides during the week, and then Yorkville Express came aboard in 2015 to cover the weekends.

The two private transit firms not only shuttle guests to and from the shelter sites, but also get them to their worksites––for those who have jobs––or other important appointments.

In 2016 a guest assistance program was established with social work interns from Aurora University. 

The interns help PADS clients with such personal issues such as addiction, mental health challenges, finding employment, and securing permanent housing.

“That added a whole new dimension to what we do at PADS,” said Ms. Engelhardt. “We were able to offer our guests a lifeline to be able to help themselves. And we will always do that.”

She points with pride to those former guests who have become contributing members of the community and some who have even volunteered at the shelters.

One of those is Darrell McGhee, 39, who sought shelter at Cross Lutheran Church on a cold December night in 2014.

“I for one as a guest had a great experience there for a couple of winters,” said Mr. McGhee, who now has a steady job and a permanent place to live. “Anne was always positive and encouraging, always found a way she could help.”

He added: “She put in a great deal of effort and hard work to make this all come together.”

Kathy Farren, an assistant site coordinator and treasurer for the nonprofit organization, agreed.

“Anne has a great combination of energy and organizational skills beyond belief,” she said. “God put the right person in place at just the right time.”

Ms. Farren, a friend of Anne’s for more than 40 years, heads a task force that is searching for a new executive director.

They are seeking someone who has considerable computer, organizational, and interpersonal skills, said Ms. Engelhardt. “I’m sure someone is out there, and perhaps getting a whisper in the ear or a nudge in the heart.”

Ideally, she continued, PADS’ new leader would be able to shadow her and learn the position throughout this shelter season, which runs through April 18, 2020.

Ms. Engelhardt and her husband Jerry are both retired teachers who have been married for 49 years. The Yorkville couple has five adult children and nine grandchildren, with one on the way.

She expressed her profound appreciation to all those who have volunteered, donated, or contributed in some way to PADS over the past nine years. "I continue to be moved by the compassion of hundreds of people in the communities who graciously give their time and kindness to others in need."  

Those who wish to donate, volunteer, or learn more about helping the homeless community may call (630) 334-8180 or visit the website at kendallcountypads.org.

Although Anne’s role in Kendall County PADS will soon be reduced, her vision remains large.

“My hope is that our community leaders and social agents will gain an understanding of the complexity of the lives of homeless people,” she said. “I hope they will begin to recognize that homelessness is a social problem that requires systemic support for a better and different approach to solutions to reduce––and maybe someday end­­––homelessness.” 

Poetry trumps politics in Caroline Kennedy's keynote talk at Judson University's World Leaders Forum in Schaumburg

By Tom Siebert

Caroline Kennedy comes from the most fabled political clan in American history.

But the author, attorney, and diplomat conducted a clinic on how to avoid family feuds over politics last night, telling stories, reciting poetry, and even playing trivia with an audience of more than 500 people at Judson University’s World Leaders Forum at the Renassaince Schaumburg Hotel and Convention Center.

“We have enough divisiveness in our country over social issues, so I’m not going to go there with you,” said Ms. Kennedy, after conservative cultural commentator Eric Metaxas asked her how she reconciled her Catholic faith with her pro-choice stance on abortion.

The subject was politely changed by Mr. Metaxas, the nationally syndicated radio host of “Socrates in the City,” a series of conversations on “life, God, and other small topics.”

“Your mother did a really great job of raising you and your brother,” the interviewer told her, referring to the late First Lady Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy and John F. Kennedy Jr., who was killed in a small plane crash in July 1999.

“My mother was somebody who was incredibly true to herself and that was a great example to my brother and me,” recalled Ms. Kennedy, who served as U.S. ambassador to Japan during the second term of President Barack Obama.

She noted that her family’s ties to that country dated to August 1943, when a Navy patrol boat commanded by her father, John F. Kennedy, was struck by a Japanese destroyer, killing two crewmen and stranding 11 others on a Samoan island for six days.

“When I was there, many older people knew of my father’s war record, but what they didn’t know is he corresponded with the crew of the Japanese destroyer throughout the 1950s,” Ms. Kennedy said.

“He had hoped to visit Japan during his second term and would have been the first sitting president to do that.”

President Kennedy was killed by an assassin’s rifle bullets while riding in a motorcade in downtown Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, five days short of Caroline’s sixth birthday.

She expressed her pride and privilege in fulfilling her father’s legacy of reconciliation in May 2016, when she accompanied President Obama to Hiroshima, Japan, the city that was decimated by a U.S. atomic bomb in August 1945, expediting the end of World War II.

“When I was the ambassador to Japan, Americans often approached me and recited my father’s presidential inaugural address from 1961,” said Ms. Kennedy. “This always made me proud because the quote ‘ask what you can do for your country’ is emblematic of the service and generosity that makes America special.”

She traced the family’s history of service to her grandmother, Rose Fitzgerald Kennedy, who “believed that we should be not just hearers of the faith but doers of the faith.”

Rose Kennedy’s father was mayor of Boston and her husband, Joseph P. Kennedy, was U.S. ambassador to Great Britain during the 1930s.

At the World Leaders Forum, Caroline singled out her late aunt, Eunice Kennedy Shriver, for founding the Special Olympics, “right here in Chicago.”

And she gave a high grade to Judson University’s Road to Independent Living, Spiritual Formation, and Employment (RISE) program, which provides a college experience for students with intellectual disabilities.

Ms. Kennedy and Mr. Metaxas, acutely aware of their political polarism, joked and cajoled each other throughout their hour-long, lively conversation.

“What does the word America mean to you?” the host asked his guest.

“You go first,” she quipped.

“I’ve written a book on the subject!” he shot back, referring to his New York Times best-seller, “If You Can Keep It: The Forgotten Promise of American Liberty.”

The two talkers found common ground on the subject of poetry, Ms. Kennedy having published three anthologies of poems, some of which her extended family members would recite or illustrate during Christmases.

She fondly recalled her “Uncle Teddy,” the late U.S. Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), reciting “The Midnight Ride of Paul Revere” at her book signings.

And she drew laughs from the audience when she recounted her young son John getting off easy on a family assignment when he memorized “The Red Wheelbarrow,” a three-line ode that Mr. Metaxas knew was written by American poet William Carlos Williams.

Trivia came up again when Ms. Kennedy remembered that the Secret Service would ask her and young John Jr. questions “to keep us quiet” such as what are the five state capitals that begin with the letter “A.”

Some sharp members of the Schaumburg audience shouted out the answers: Albany,‎ Annapolis, Atlanta, Augusta, and Austin.

Then the discussion turned serious, to sacrifice, a subject that the tragedy-stricken Kennedy family knows all too well.

Caroline’s other uncle on her dad’s side, Sen. Robert F. Kennedy (D-N.Y.), was gunned down after winning the California presidential primary on June 5, 1968, dying the next day at Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles.

And to this day, all of her many cousins are involved in service in some way.

“Our democracy is something that is really precious, and we should treat it that way,” she asserted. “It really does inspire me to want to give back, to be worthy of that sacrifice and legacy that has gone before us.”

Mr. Metaxas concurred. “God blesses us so that we’ll be a blessing.”

The eighth edition of Judson’s World Leadership Forum received rave reviews from students.

“I loved the presentation,” said Bryan Tripp, a junior majoring in music and business administration.

“I thought it was a real fun evening, lighthearted, not at all what I expected it to be.”
Sophomore Ce’Nedra Fogg, a psychology major, agreed. “I loved the witty banter between them. It was an actual conversation that I felt I was a part of.”

The goal of the World Leaders Forum is to present Judson students and the Chicagoland community with an opportunity to be inspired by significant thought leaders. Proceeds fund Judson Leadership Scholarships and innovative entrepreneurial activities, as well as support ongoing operations of the Forum.

Previous keynote speakers at the annual event were former President George W. Bush, ex-Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, former Soviet Union leader Mikhail Gorbachev, ex-British Prime Minister Tony Blair, former Mexican President Felipe Calderón, Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan, former U.S. Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, and ex-Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.

Located in Elgin since 1963, Judson affords students a Christian, liberal arts and sciences education through its Bachelor of Arts degrees in more than 60 majors, minors, and graduate programs. The university also offers online courses, in addition to certification and accelerated adult-degree programs. For more information, visit www.JudsonU.edu.