Huntley Community Comes Together for GreenTrees

A total of 200 volunteers spend countless hours on the landscape project at GreenTrees and many will be coming back to help in other ways.

  Ula Burkhart can’t walk very well. She uses a cane to just to steady herself, she said, lifting the cane sitting next to her to demonstrate. Her unsteadiness didn’t stop the GreenTrees resident from being part of the “watering brigade” this summer. “I watered every night,” Burkhart said, adding she was able to hold on the sprinkler without falling. She wanted to help. “I didn’t want the flowers to die. We have some pretty ones out there,” she said. GreenTrees is a senior low income-housing complex run by the McHenry County Housing Authority, which obtained a federal grant to do a landscape project on the property. This summer, an estimated 200 volunteers came to the housing complex to plant flowers, plants and trees for seniors to enjoy…

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John Collier

8:06 am on Wednesday, October 17, 2012

Nice work! This is a feel good story and I like those much more than police blotters.   more ›

Donations Help Fund Area Fireworks in Tough Economy

While many towns and cities have been forced to cut back on Fourth of July fireworks displays, there are still plenty of area places to enjoy a pyrotechnic shows.

Huntley is celebrating the Fourth of July with its annual fireworks display but many surrounding communities have cut out the tradition due to the cost. The village sponsors a 25-plus minute display, being held at the Huntley Outlet Center, 11800 Factory Shops Blvd., on Monday, July 4. The show costs $10,000. “It’s such a nice community event, we would hate to discontinue anything like this until we had to,” said Barb Read, management assistant for the village of Huntley. When villages can no longer fund fireworks displays, donors have stepped in to make sure the tradition continues. Displays important to community Donna Sullivan knows how important fireworks are to a local community. As executive director of the Wonder Lake Chamber of …

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Huntley Rotary Meets Huntley Patch

Thanks to Huntley Rotary for Tuesday's breakfast meeting. Rotary members meet every week at 7:30am. The Rotary has done lots of community service, including a recent Baggo Tournament that raised donations for Grafton Food Pantry.

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Over 100 Exhibitors Featured at Expo

Sun City Huntley hosts 2,000 people at its Fall Consumer Showcase.

 The 2010 Sun City Huntley Fall Consumer Showcase drew a crowd of around 2,000 people Thursday who came to visit over 100 exhibitors with products and services ranging from automotive to window treatments. Exhibits filled the Prairie View Lodge hallway, gallery, sales center, design center, game room, social lounge, Drendel Ballroom, solarium, and card/multipurpose room. Sun City Huntley resident Donna Peterson has volunteered as the event coordinator for the past six years. "If anybody needs anything, it's all here in one spot," Peterson said. Vendors offered drawing for prizes ranging from potted mums for instant winners to airplane tickets, jewelry, gift certificates. Donated gift baskets were given away as raffle prizes. Craig Cicero, …

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Visually Impaired Volunteer Inspires Teens

Maureen Berg was honored by the Illinois State Board of Education for volunteerism.

When a near-fatal car crash in Woodstock on Oct. 16, 1996, left Huntley resident Maureen Berg in a coma for weeks, doctors worked diligently to save her life. But the accident caused her optic nerve to atrophy and rendered her completely blind. "I didn't accept it," Berg said, "I just had to learn to live with being blind for the rest of my life." She was airlifted to a rehabilitation facility in Connecticut, where she began intense physical and occupational therapy and received the "tough love" she said needed to rebuild her life. "With the help of the nurses and my family, I realized that the ball was in my court," Berg said. "Either I could learn to live with my handicap or be miserable." She has not only lived with it, she has …

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