Residents helping both first responders and restaurants during a challenging time

Taking Care ofour Caretakers in DeKalb County

Residents Helping Both First Responders and Restaurants During a ChallengingTime

By: Stephen Haberkorn

As the coronavirus spread sickness and economic anxiety around DeKalb County during the spring of 2020, acts of kindness and community support seemed to be just as contagious. One group in particular stood out during this time. “Taking Care of our Caretakers-DeKalb County,” a group started on Facebook by two old friends, served thousands of meals and treats to healthcare workers, first responders and essential workers, raised tens of thousands of dollars to support local restaurants, and inspired many others to do what they could to lend a hand during the difficult time.

Katie Norris-Geer of DeKalb, one of the founders of the group, has a board that says, “When you open your heart to helping others, you begin to heal yourself.” She thought about that saying as she recovered from a 30-year addiction to opiates and a second bout of kidney cancer. After seeing a woman featured on TV who was providing meals to healthcare workers and first responders on the frontlines

of the COVID-19 pandemic, Norris-Geer got the idea to start Taking Care of our Caretakers-DeKalb County, Illinois (TCOCDKC). She called an old friend, Melissa Butts, who was heavily-involved with several DeKalb County community groups and pitched her the idea. Butts created a Facebook page for the group and a gofundme campaign, and NorrisGeer and Butts kicked in $150 between them to get things started.

By the next day, the campaign had raised thousands of dollars, and that evening they delivered 50 fish dinners from The Lincoln Inn to the E.R. and I.C.U. staff at Kishwaukee Hospital. The following day, Common Grounds provided breakfast for the hospital workers and Domino’s Pizza delivered pizza and pasta to both Kishwaukee Hospital and Davita Dialysis in the afternoon.

As of May 24th, the group had over 1,100 members on their Facebook

page. They had paid over $33,000 to local restaurants and delivered over 6,600 servings (both meals and treats) to caretakers all throughout DeKalb County. They averaged spending about $10 per meal and between $500-1,000 dollars a day. Their goal was to raise $40,000 total, so that they could keep it going through at least the end of May, 2020.

Besides Norris-Geer’s inspiration, none of that would have been possible without the work of Melissa Butts. “Melissa is very DeKalb proud,” said Norris-Geer. “We all are, but Melissa goes that extra mile and is always willing to step in and help.” Butts has the skills and connections to get things done through her job and her involvement in local non-profit groups like Proudly DeKalb, DeKalb Corn Fest, DeKalb County Unites and the Cortland PTA.

In her day job, Butts is a recruiter for CTC TeleServices in DeKalb. “I just go

into recruit mode when it’s something that I’m as excited and passionate about as this,” said Butts. Using her recruiting skills, she was able to bring several other women on board who also worked tirelessly to fulfill the group’s mission. In addition to Norris-Geer and Butts, the TCOCDKC board consisted of Brenda Jergens, Sue Christiansen, Jennifer Yochem, Patricia Myers, Christi Coulter, and Tammy Harper. All of the women brought with them special skills and connections.

“Never did I think it would turn into something that was so communitywide,” said Norris-Geer. “It’s a community healing...We’re giving them good meals and we’re supporting our local businesses by giving them money to help them stay in business.”

Norris-Greer pointed out that DeKalb County has always been supportive during difficult times, and remembered

the way the community wrapped its arms around everyone after the Valentine’s Day shooting at NIU in 2008.

“I think people realize that these people who are taking care of us are exposing themselves possibly, and then going home to their families and putting them at risk,” said Norris-Geer.

Joey Schap, Clinical Director of Respiratory Therapy at Kishwaukee Hospital, said that the hospital staff has been greatly encouraged by the efforts of the group.

“The overwhelming amount of meals that have been provided to all shifts at the hospital has been received with such graciousness and staff really genuinely feels that they have 100% support of the community,” said Schap. “I think it makes them want to work even harder, because they know that the community is showing tremendous gratitude towards them and the work that they’re doing.”

Schap further explained that the hospital staff feel fortunate to be working and living, for many of them, in a great community that is going above and beyond to ensure that they are feeling supported. In addition, they are grateful that the Taking Care of our Caretakers group is also supporting local restaurants to help them stay in business as well.

Besides delivering meals to Kishwaukee Hospital 3-5 times a week, other healthcare providers and first responders who were served by the group included Valley West Hospital, Kindred Hospital, DaVita Dialysis, all of the police departments in the county, all of the fire departments in the county, Bethany Rehab, Pine Acres, DeKalb County Hospice, Kishwaukee Hospital Cancer Center, DeKalb County Health Department, Northwestern Medicine Sycamore, Northwestern Medicine - Genoa, Physicians Immediate Care, Ben Gordon Center, DeKalb County Rehab & Nursing Center, Heritage Woods, Oak Crest, Prairie Crossing, Ridge Ambulance and A-TEC Ambulance.

 SUPPORTING LOCAL RESTAURANTS DeKalb County restaurant owners have been appreciative of the business that the TCOCDKC group has given them, and they are also glad to be able to do their part to give back to the caretakers and to the community. Bill McMahon, owner of the Lincoln Inn restaurant in DeKalb, has been hit especially hard by the pandemic, because his family also owns Faranda’s Banquet Center. Since there are no events going on or even being planned at this time, Faranda’s business has completely dried up. “When you see Melissa and Katie doing something positive like this it inspires me to try to keep positive,” said McMahon. “It’s one of the pluses that comes out of a bad situation.”

McMahon was pleasantly surprised when Butts contacted him on the morning of March 20th about the possibility of providing 20 fish dinners for caregivers. She had seen The Lincoln Inn’s website and then advertised on the TCOCDKC Facebook page that $14 would buy a dinner for one of the caretakers. Things snowballed from there, and they ended up placing an order for 50 fish dinners that McMahon and his daughter personally delivered to Kishwaukee Hospital that evening.

“It worked out really well,” said McMahon. “We were in the shock of having our dining rooms closed, so we were happy that someone ordered 50 meals.” Because of the order, The Lincoln Inn was able to keep five people working that day. The TCOCDKC group has ordered one more meal from the restaurant since then, and Kishwaukee Hospital has also placed an order directly for 25 boxed lunches.

“There’s only so much cleaning we can do or walls we can paint,” said McMahon. “We’re hospitality people. We’re cooks. We’re servers. That’s what we need to do. So when Melissa calls me and says, ‘Bill, I need an order for next Tuesday,’ that allows me to schedule a full staff.”

After TCOCDKC publicized The Lincoln Inn’s fish delivery of the dinners to the hospital, they received lots of messages from people thanking them for what they did. Some of their customers even gave them “nice-sized” amounts of money to help them out. Because of people’s generosity, they started doing customer appreciation meals on Monday’s, where they paid for and prepared snack boxes and customers drove through to pick them up. One Monday, 130 people came through and picked up Italian beef snack packs. The following week, they gave away 200 pork chop dinner snack packs. “It’s been a pay-it-forward kind of thing,” said McMahon.

Another restaurant owner who has been able to provide meals to healthcare workers through the Taking Care of our Caretakers-DeKalb County group has been Bea Pham of Bea’s Wok ’n Roll in DeKalb. TCOCDKC has placed three orders with Bea’s for a total of 31 meals. Pham said that the orders have helped her a lot, and at the same time she has been able to take care of caregivers.

“This is a really emotional time for me,” said Pham. “I’m struggling right now, but I want to serve the community. That’s why I’m here. When they open the box, I will make them happy. This is the only way I can serve.”

Bea’s third order from the group was 17 meals for Prairie Point Ob/Gyn in Sycamore. Dr. Dubrick’s office is a regular customer of hers, so she knows what they like. She said she went out of her way to do extra for them, because “they have the heart for people.” “Nobody expected it to be this way, but things happen for a reason,” said Pham. “We hold hands together and make it work. I’ve been in the community for almost 30 years and everyone who walks into my place is my family and I pray for them every day.”

And Bea’s customers return the love. She recently had a customer whom she hadn’t seen for twenty years called her from California and donated $100. She was able to give the money to two of her employees.

Other local restaurants who provided meals for caretakers through the TCOCDKD group included Sweet Dream Desserts & Catering, Pizza Villa, Taxco, The Neighborhood Bakery & Deli, Fatty’s Pub & Grille, Egg Haven, Hometown Sports Bar & Grill, Burritoville, The Huddle, Remington’s Gastropub, Maria’s Little Italy, The Junction, French Toast Pancake House, Rosita’s, Barb City Bagels, Smoking Grill, Ollie’s, Latsis Bakery, Cassie’s Corn Crib Cafe, Polka Dot Bakery, Big D’s Hot Dogs, Hillside Restaurant, World Famous Pizza, Fanatico, Gonzo’s Pizzeria, Elleson’s Bakery, Pizzo Pros, Pita Pete’s, Angie’s Sugar Buzz Bakery, Tinez Tacos, Beef Shack, Tom & Jerry’s of Sycamore, Sycamore Cafe, Martha’s Kitchen, Bull Moose Bar & Grille, Johnny K’s, and Country Girl Food Service & Restaurant.

 RANDOM ACTS OF KINDNESS At first, the Taking Care of our Caretakers group just provided meals to healthcare workers and first responders—the people on the front lines of the pandemic. And then, using food donated by businesses, they expanded to what they labeled “random acts of kindness,” or providing treats to other essential workers, such as postal carriers and auto mechanics.

“Some of us who have been laid off and don’t work in the healthcare field were wondering, ‘What can we do for the

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people who don’t get to stay at home, that are out there stocking the toilet paper and doing all these things to help us?’” said Norris-Geer.

One of the businesses that TCOCDKC surprised through their random acts of kindness was DeKalb-Sycamore Chevrolet GMC Cadillac. Alyssa Mershon of Sycamore, who works on the service drive at the dealership, said the visit gave them a big lift.

“When Katie came in, I think it caught us all off guard,” said Mershon. “Sometimes I don’t necessarily think of myself as essential in the car business, so it was nice to see that people kind of understood that we are essential as well.”

Norris-Geer delivered candy from The Confectionary and Starbucks. She served pretty much everybody in the service drive—the service manager, the dispatcher, the advisors, the quick lube people, and the mechanics. She also got the salesmen and the people upstairs in the office. According to Mershon, they were really excited about the coffee, since they had not been using their coffee machine for a while because of the coronavirus.

“I think it’s really awesome that they are going out of their way to spread some hope and some light and some positivity during this dark and negative time,” said Mershon. “We all super appreciated it.”

Those encouraged by random acts of kindness included people making and delivering meals at all of the schools, TransVAC, Grand Victorian, Sycamore Medical Associates, Edward Medical Group, Safe Passage, Biolife, Northwestern Clinic, NIU Student Health, Opportunity House, Genesis House, NIU Dispatchers, City of DeKalb Dispatchers, DeKalb County Dispatchers, Midwest Orthopedic, Open Door Rehabilitation, Hauser-Ross Eye Institute, Northwestern Medicine ENT, Bethesda Lutheran Home, Sandwich Rehabilitation & Health Care Center, and Lehan Drugs.

Businesses that donated treats for random acts of kindness included Sweet Dream Desserts, Sweet Delights, The Neighborhood Bakery, Hy-Vee and Schnucks.

 INSPIRING OTHERS TO GET INVOLVED As word got out about what the Taking Care of our Caretakers group was doing, others in the DeKalb County community were inspired to pitch in. In particular, a

couple District 428 school teachers came up with the idea to sell signs thanking healthcare workers, first responders and essential workers. Jill Springer, a literacy teacher with the DeKalb School District, originally came up with the idea. She called Cate Cardella, another DeKalb school teacher, to see if she would make the signs.

“I was inspired to do the signs based on everything I’ve been seeing Melissa’s group doing,” said Cardella. “You’re working in a hospital with the stress that you’re feeling and then somebody shows up with meals. What a sense of relief and comfort, like you’re being taken care of. And then to keep our local restaurants going is so important for our economy. I was just inspired by the outpouring of the community to donate, that I thought if we can do anything to help that would be great.”

In order to produce higher quality, weather resistant signs, they had them made by Banner Up Signs in Sycamore. They charged $15 for each sign and donated half of the price to TCOCDKC. Because the task of processing thousands of dollars in donations and delivering hundreds of signs was so great, Springer and Cardella enlisted the help of two other women: Melissa Beck and Vicky Aburto. After stopping sales at the end of April, the “Essential Signs - DeKalb County” group had delivered 450 signs all over DeKalb County (and beyond) and donated

$5,500 to TCOCDK. Banner Up Signs even agreed to continue selling the signs and donating half to TCOCDK on their own beginning in May.

“It is a win-win-win,” pointed out Cardella. “We’re supporting Banner Up Signs, who has been awesome. We’re supporting first responders, essential workers and healthcare workers by putting the signs up, and then we’re supporting TCOCDKC, who are feeding the healthcare workers, but are also supporting local restaurants and bakeries.”

In addition to donating meals, through the TCOCDKC Facebook page, group members also made and donated face masks and headbands to healthcare workers.

 BUSINESSES DONATING TO THE CAUSE Several businesses also helped to keep the caretaker meal train going by doing fundraisers and/or making large donations. Whiskey Acres donated $1500 they made from selling their hand sanitizer shirts. Tonya Sheehan of Fundraising by the Buckets raised thousands of dollars through laundry and dish soap sales. Sports of all Sorts raised over $600 for the cause through “Shop Local” t-shirt sales. Tom & Jerry’s of Sycamore Catering by Diann donated $500. Tito’s Vodka donated $1,000 through Fatty’s Pub & Grille. Brenda Jergens of Malta reached out to Jonamac Orchard about doing a fundraiser to sponsor a meal. As it turns out, Jonamac had talked with Edward Apple Orchard West in Winnebago about a drive-thru doughnut fundraiser they did and was looking for a charity to partner with for a similar event. Jonamac decided how many of their cinnamon sugar apple cider doughnuts they could reasonably make with their small spring staff and spread pick-up over five hours to limit the traffic and crowds. They raised the price for a dozen doughnuts from $10.00 to $12.50 for the fundraiser and sold out 400 dozen doughnuts in one morning. Since it was all paid in advance, no exchange of cash or credit cards was necessary. Jonamac was able to donate $2,000 to TCOCDKC from their fundraiser, and because everything went so smoothly they were planning to do another one.

“This group, we thought was wonderful. I love what they’re doing,” said Kevin McArtor. “There are so many good causes right now. There are so many things happening. I’m so impressed with the people who have stepped up. It restores your faith in humanity and in America to see people reaching out to help other people.”

Said Norris-Geer: “I may have had an idea, but it took a whole community, all of DeKalb County, to make this happen. I am forever grateful and humbled. They’ve all filled my heart and made this the best experience of my life.”

 EXTENDING THEIR INFLUENCE In addition to TCOCDKC inspiring people throughout DeKalb County to provide food for caretakers and support local businesses during the pandemic, Melissa Butts was also able to help others begin similar groups around Northern Illinois, the Midwest and even in other countries. Butts put her recruiting skills to work and contacted former DeKalb resident, Ellen (Hager) Posledni, who is the Batavia City Clerk, about starting a Taking Care of our Caretakers chapter in Batavia. Posledni reached out to a couple of her contacts and they started Taking Care of our Caretakers - Batavia. Melissa Butts’ daughter and another woman started Sauk Valley Taking Care of our Caretakers. Karlos Ramirez, who is from DeKalb, started something similar for the Hispanic Chamber of Commerice in St. Louis. A man from the United Kingdom even contacted Butts about starting a group in his country.

This movement shows that it only takes an idea and a few friends to make a huge changed that helped so many in our county.