Daily Herald Sunday April 24, 2005
Suburban groups pitch in and help renovate West Side shelter in a weekend
By Deborah Donovan
Daily Herald Homes Writer
Suburban organizations stepped up and worked around the clock recently to help a shelter on Chicago's West Side.
It took one weekend of solid work for a crew of about 100 people to build a new kitchen, bathroom and playroom at Tabitha House Shelter. The shelter at 550 N. Pine provides emergency housing for women and children.
Brad Swaback, president of Just Rite Acoustics of Elk Grove Village, served as project manager and said he got about four hours of sleep during the 64-hour period. This was the first project of the Mitchell Swaback Foundation, established in honor of Brad's 23-year-old nephew who died last year in a diving accident.
"We are in the construction industry, and Mitch loved serving in Peru building orphanages and helping others, so we thought we would use the skills we know for our first project," said Swaback a foundation director. "I think he would have been very proud of what happened last weekend," he said.
Both The Swaback foundation and the Leopardo Foundation of Hoffman Estates-another major donor for the weekend blitz-committed to rehabbing the old six-flat that serves as Tabitha House.
The building has 24 sleeping rooms for 60 women and children, said Richard Cray, executive director of the Leopardo Foundation. A total of 5,000 meals a month are served to people in the neighborhood, he said.
The 24/7 style of the project was designed to disrupt the living arrangements of the clients as little as possible, Cray said.
People started working at 7 a.m. Friday and most of the work was done by 11:30 pm Sunday, said Cray and Swaback.
Tabitha House was opened in 1975 by the Rev. Willie Walker and Sister Lula Walker in their home. ""This project made sense," Cray said. "There are heartwarming stories of women and children and Reverend and Sister Walker."
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