After one-half year of random events celebrating Park Forest’s 75th birthday, the village is planning a mid-August gala and concert to honor the community.
Instead of free T-shirt giveaways and a $75 credit on a monthly water bill for one family each month, this big bash is planned as a concert by the Better Together jazz ensemble, along with a reception and/or dinner in Freedom Hall on Aug. 15. How much a ticket will cost will depend on your selection of post-concert choices and will range from $75 to $125
Net income from tickets and from a glitzy ad book will benefit the village’s scholarship fund, the Veterans Closet, and the Park Forest Historical Society. In a sense, all three groups benefit residents through knowledge, charity and history.
No, the affair will not be cheap, but coupled with the ad book revenue could improve the status of those three organizations which depend on both public and village support.
The Park Forest Scholarship, in collaboration with the Park Forest Youth Commission, helps provide financial aid to graduating high school seniors who, according to the village, “must demonstrate strong academic ability and a high level of character.”
We’ve discussed the Veterans Closet and Resource Center before, and how it began as the outgrowth of a communitywide garage sale in 2015, and for the last nine years has freely benefited hundreds of returning service personnel in need of everyday necessities of civilian life.
That it is located in the heart of a village which began as a “G.I. Town;” a town built for returning World War II veterans and their families seeking good housing in a new place, has now become a full-circle network.
The Park Forest Historical Society is located in St. Mary’s Catholic Church on Monee Road and may be forced to vacate next year in what a letter from the Joliet Diocese called the “targeted restructuring” (read closing) of 19 of its parishes, including both St. Mary’s and St. Liborius Catholic Church in Steger.
The historical society was started in 1985 by the Park Forest Public Library, a suggestion by former Mayor Henry Dietch and headed by librarian Jane Nicoll, who has been the keeper of its flame through the years as the society became the repository for all things Park Forest, including all issues of its newspaper, the Park Forest Reporter, nearly 80 transcribed oral histories and hundreds of donations by residents.
Beginning in 1981, Nicoll and fellow librarian Gretchen Falk collected, sorted, filed and preserved this once unique village’s past. In 1998, village founder Philip Klutznick became the first member of the society’s Park Forest Hall of Fame, a select group that now numbers more than 200.
A House Museum was created for the village’s 50th anniversary in 1999, furnished as it would have looked during its first half decade. It first operated in a town house at 397 Forest Blvd., Through the years, the museum moved two more times before coming to St. Mary’s, where it occupies two rooms — a cramped museum and a historical repository.
If it must move next year, its options are limited. If anyone thinks that because I once served as president of the society that I believe it must remain an ongoing part of village life, you are right.
The climax of this year will come on Veterans Day, Nov. 11, when the village’s Veterans Commission will sponsor its annual event complete with a Huey helicopter offering rides. More is being planned, says Veterans Commission member Mike Gans, who is also the volunteer coordinator for the Veterans Closet.
If all goes well, the tribute year will connect the village to its children, its charity and its way of life and we can forget an unfocused July 4 village parade in which there was not a single banner or sign mentioning the birthday.
Jerry Shany, at jerryshnay@gmail,com, is a freelance columnist for the Daily Southtown.,
