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SPORTS Area athletes compete at D-I level Page 11
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NEWS Celebrity chefs make Goodwill’s BBQ a hit
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Your Community, Your News
community
JULY 23, 2014
Vol. 6 No. 34
schools
Woman’s clubs assist in school supply drive Hope’s Front Door began back-toschool collection and distribution project nearly a decade ago
By Jonathan Samples staff reporter Since the early ‘90s, Woodridge police have worked with Special Olympics Illinois to help raise money and awareness for the more than 21,000 athletes who compete in 180 competitions annually. That union gained another partner Wednesday during Westwood College’s Family Funapalooza, an event to raise money for the Law Enforcement Torch Run. And like so many Torch Run events, raising awareness of Special Olympics Illinois was a goal on equal footing with fundraising efforts. “If you don’t have the community involved, you can have as many fundraisers as you want but you’re not going to have the impact you want,” Woodridge police officer Dan McIntyre said. McIntyre worked closelywith Westwood College to organize the Funapalooza event, and he has been active in many Woodridge Police Department fundraisers for Special Olympics Illinois such as the Super Plunge and Torch Run.
See ‘together’ page 23
The Details. Volunteers dressed as Queen Elsa and Princess Anna from the 2013 Disney film “Frozen” perform songs from the film and posed for photographs with children during the event.
Junior woman’s clubs from Downers Grove and Woodridge are once again partnering with a local not-forprofit to collect and distribute school supplies for children in need. Hope’s Front Door, formerly Walk-In Ministry of Hope, provides a widevariety of human services for families and individuals struggling financially that ultimately promote self-sufficiency. Hope’s Front Door began their back-toschool collection and distribution project nearly a decade ago in order to expand on the piecemeal approach they had taken up to that point, according to the charity’s executive director Janelle Robinson. The backpack program helps students from >> see Supply | page 5