Kadner: ‘Amazing’ readers help agency help the needy

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Updated: March 11, 2012 8:30AM

SouthtownStar readers responded with “amazing” support for Together We Cope after the social service agency’s food truck was disabled.

As I reported last week, thieves stole two catalytic converters off the truck, apparently because they contain the precious metal platinum.

Although Together We Cope had an insurance policy on the vehicle, it had a $500 deductible and, more important, the truck was needed the next day to make a trip to the Chicago Food Depository to feed needy families in the Southland.

Vallejo RE/MAX of Orland Park loaned the organization a truck to make the food pickup. Al Vallejo is on the organization’s board of directors.

Chris King, president of South Holland-based Robinson Engineering, presented a $500 check to Together We Cope to cover the deductible.

Jim Long, of Molly Maid in Tinley Park, presented the organization with a “large donation” for truck repair and its 30th anniversary dinner-dance on Feb. 24, according to Marge Seltzner, spokeswoman for Together We Cope.

Lou Filosa, of Mokena, also presented the agency with a check on behalf of the Chicago Petroleum Council for the truck repair and food. About 60 families a day use the Together We Cope food pantry.

A family from Oak Forest dropped off a check to the organization and their three children sent along $12.17 in coins in an envelope, representing their allowance.

A note was included from two of the children, Seltzner said.

An 8-year-old wrote, “Here’s some money to help fix the truck.” A 6-year-old wrote, “Here’s some money from my allowance to help people in need get food.” The 4-year-old told her mom, “I really want to help you because I don’t want the people to be hungry.”

“The outpouring of support from your readers has been amazing,” Seltzner said.

A Korean War veterans organization sent a check, and several automobile repair garages offered to fix the truck at cost. Unfortunately, it was already in the shop being repaired, Seltzner said.

Bill Parks, service manager of Hawk Chevrolet in Bridgeview, read the column and offered to repair the truck. After finding out it was already being fixed, he checked with the owners of the dealership and said he would do any future repairs free of charge.

Seltzner also told me about a rather gruff fellow from Blue Island who dropped off a check and mentioned that he read my column.

“If Kadner says you’re good guys, then that’s good enough for me,” he allegedly said.

When asked if he was a “fan” of the column, he replied, “No, I wouldn’t say that because I don’t always agree with him. But I read him every day.”

I couldn’t ask for a better endorsement than that.

Together We Cope was launched 30 years ago by an Oak Forest woman, Loraine Cook, as part of a Christmas church project to help the needy. After the holiday passed, Cook and her fellow volunteers realized that people were still in need.

And it just seemed wrong to help the needy only during the Christmas season, she told me.

Soon she was collecting food, clothes, furniture and cash donations in her home and garage. Through word of mouth, the donations began pouring in.

Loraine was so effective that government agencies began recommending that people seek her out if they needed help right away and couldn’t wait for bureaucratic red tape to be processed.

That’s how Together We Cope, the largest social service agency in the southwest suburbs, was born.

It helps people who are unemployed, families facing eviction from their homes and others facing a financial crisis. It has a resale shop Nu2u, and offices in Tinley Park on Oak Park Avenue.

Unfortunately, Loraine died before the agency hit its stride, but she lived long enough to make sure it would survive and thrive after her passing.

Together We Cope now has a small paid staff and receives some government funding but remains primarily an organization of volunteers that relies heavily on donations from people in the community.

Like many organizations in Illinois that help the needy, it finds itself stressed not only by the demand for services created by the economic crisis but by cuts in state funding.

I thank all of you who have reached out to Together We Cope because of the food-truck vandalism and in the past.

For information on how to help Together We Cope, or for tickets to its annual dinner-dance fundraiser, visit togetherwecope.org or call (708) 633-5040.

And if you’re in trouble, you can always call them.

You can thank Loraine Cook for that.