After being virtual for our 2021 meeting, it was so refreshing to be together for our Annual Dinner at McHenry Country Club once again on March 13. Thanks to Tom Skilling, WGN-TV Chief Meteorologist, being our rock star guest speaker, the Defenders had a record turn-out of almost 250 people for our Annual Dinner! We were so thankful to have Tom Skilling as our speaker, as he was not only super informative about climate change, but also incredibly personable and such a joy for everyone to talk with.
The night began with social time, a cash bar and time to bid on items in our bag raffle, silent auction and 50/50 raffle. Because of the huge success of last year’s online auction, The Fundraising Action Team decided to keep the silent auction online again. Thanks to generous donations to the auction, the team reached their goal of raising over $6,000 to support our paid summer interns!
The reception featured music by the Dundee-Crown High School Jazz Combo. Before Tom’s presentation on climate change, we had Carla Baldwin of Baldwin Web Design in Crystal Lake present our members with the Defenders’ new website which went live the following week.
Tom Skilling, introduced by Nancy Schietzelt, was the highlight of the evening with his presentation “Climate change is here and real, its effects already evident. Weather extremes are up, increasingly impactful and expensive. There’s such misinformation out there and from sources ill-informed on the subject. Scientists have been onto the notion our planet would warm since the 1800’s – it’s not a new concept at all.” We had several members submit questions to Tom, which he will answer and we will share via our email mailing list. And if you missed his presentation, we filmed it live and posted it on the Defenders’ Facebook and it is also posted on the Defenders’ YouTube. See the full talk here: https://youtu.be/eqglf5QjVhw
During the business portion of the dinner, the Defenders presented five awards:
The Theta Award went to Small Waters Education for their work on advocating for, creating and helping to maintain “outdoor classroom” native gardens for pollinators at schools; for inspiring the youth in our county to help take care of the land and its critters; for serving the Latino community with Spanish pollinator garden brochures and through program participation with Conversaciόn de Conservaciόn – a partnering of community and conservation organizations; for working on the county’s first Food Forest with The Land Conservancy; and for all their work in educating our community on the importance of land and soil health, especially in the areas of permaculture, and deep ecology; and for being a leading local resource for practical information and education about building a healthy ecosystem for all.
Photo: Judy and Jack Speer of Small Waters Education received the Theta Award
The Government Award was presented to McHenry County Division of Transportation for their leadership in coupling environmental sustainability with a safe and efficient transportation system; for partnering with us to install signage identifying names of streams and their watersheds at road crossings; for naturalizing their roadsides; for continuing to be a leader in the sensible salting movement; for installing environmentally-friendly and crash-reducing roundabouts; and for offering McRide and pursuing ‘Complete Streets’ to provide better, equitable options for people to bike, walk and use transit to move around our county.
Photo: Cindy Skrukrud presents the Government Award to Scott Hennings, Ernest Varga and Kevin Kucharski of McHenry County Division of Transportation
The Business Award was given to Julie Ann’s Custard for their passion for their community and the environment, for their use of compostable containers and packaging, for sourcing ingredients locally, and for offering vegan options for their guests.
Photo: Business award-winners Linda Anderson and Peter Wisniewski from Julie Ann’s Frozen Custard pose with Tom Skilling
Larry Baum was awarded the Volunteer of the Year Award for seamlessly taking over the reins to help operate The Defenders’ Styrofoam Collection Program and for constantly thinking of ways to improve the process; for logistics of scheduling trucks, people power, supplies, improvements to sheds and reporting volunteer hours and needs; for increasing seasons sheds are open and for his excellent and consistent communication skills of program needs.
Photo: Board member Ken Santowski presents Larry Baum with Volunteer of the Year Award
And last but not least, the Young Defender award was given to Mac Hansen for their volunteerism at The Green Spot Used Book Store and for their devotion to saving books from the landfill, creativity with decorating the store and outstanding friendliness with customers, and for helping to keep the store open on Mondays which helps to earn money for our environmental protection projects.
Congratulations to all of the award winners!
After dinner everyone enjoyed delicious frozen custard donated by award winner Julie Ann’s Frozen Custard, and vegan chocolate cake partially donated by Uprising Bakery and Café.
Thank you to the generous sponsors of our 2022 Annual Dinner: Wells Fargo; William R. Kreznor & Associates, Inc.; McHenry County Conservation District; Marvin’s Toy Store; McHenry County College Sustainability Center; Natural Communities Native Plants; Phil Zack; The Foodshed Co-op; Bluestem Ecological Services; and Certasun.
And of course, thank you to all of the wonderful volunteers who made this event successful.
