Coordinating Community Care

In the United States, Township Government is the rung of government below Counties, and is the office that is closest to the people. Yet few people are aware of its existence or function. The office of Avon Township works hard to grow awareness of its services.

Avon Township is North West of Chicago, and contains seven municipalities, including Grays Lake, Third Lake, Hanesville, and most of the Round Lakes. That adds up to a population of over 6300 people. The needs of every constituency vary. In Avon Township, the most urgent needs concern the finances and resources that sustain daily life. To meet this need, the current township administration has turned the office into a place where people can come and take what they need.

Michele Bauman, the Supervisor of Avon Township views her role differently than most politicians. “I’m not the typical government official, in the sense that my mission is just to bring the community together. That is my mission,” she said.

Bauman’s path to leadership also sets her apart. Though she has a bachelor’s degree in Leisure Studies, and a certification in Non-Profit Leadership Management and American Humanics from Arizona State, her dyslexia and dysgraphia made the secretarial work that was available to young women like her in the early nineties a poor fit. She did secure an internship, which had her conduct a fundraising sale. She explained, “the McDonald’s corporation happened to be there that day, and they discovered me and I became Mrs. McDonald and my job was to go around McDonalds and make people happy. Through that, I ended up meeting people, and I went to Clown College!”

With the additional degree, Bauman founded her own entertainment company. Her troupe started volunteering regularly at hospitals and finding other ways to give back. In time Bauman was one of the top 100 volunteers. Soon, she was asked to become a leader. “Boys Scouts of America, which is now Scouting BSA, gave me my first actual leadership opportunity,” said Bauman, “Somebody asked me to be an assistant Cub Master which meant you help run the pack, and I’m like ‘I can’t do that because of xyz’, but they’re like ‘I don’t care about the things you can’t do, I only care about the things you can do’, and that has really been my philosophy with everybody else. Don’t think about the things you can’t do, think about the things you can do!”

After twenty years of scouting, Bauman is glad she accepted the challenge. “What would have happened if I said no? Scouting changed me for the good. It’s changed my kids and helped turn them into leaders,” she said, “I became a trustee back in 2017, and in 2021, I ran for Supervisor, and I won that one. And I am now reelected in my second term. So what I am trying to create is a place for the community to come to.”

Bauman has leaned into the challenge of being Township Supervisor and strives to do far more than the title expects. “General assistance is what we have to provide. You don’t have to have a food pantry, but most townships do. You know, I could live in here, as long as I’m taking care of the budget and doing the bare minimum,” but Bauman’s philosophy rejects this approach, “whether it’s your job or your life, make your job count. And that’s what I’m trying to do with this position.”

This mindset has produced results. Bauman knew which result brought her the most pride. “It’s to bring the seven municipalities together: Round Lake helping Grays Lake, Grays Lake helping Round Lake, and Third Lake, and things like that. We are a community that can support each other.”

One of Bauman’s first acts as Township Supervisor was to resurrect the food pantry. The initiative started humbly with three boxes of food, but has grown with support from community members and organizations like Community Action Partnership. The Food Pantry was so high on the order of business because, “it’s the first resource,” Bauman said, “When I first started there was no food pantry, which meant people stopped coming in which meant they stopped getting resources. So figuring out a way to bring back the food pantry is the core, it’s the core! Cause then we can find out why they are struggling with food, what else can we do to help them out. What’s going on with your kids? You know we have other resources that could help the kids. We have programs that could help seniors so they don’t have to pay the full fee for their registration for their vehicle. Or we could help with this program, or this program…”

Other resources available at Avon Township work similarly. One example is Narcan, which is administered to people experiencing an opioid overdose. Access to Narcan saves lives. Bauman recounted a story about a woman who came in for narcan and got more support: “she asked about it because she had two family members that are struggling, and she struggled herself with hard drugs. She regressed but she’s doing better now. But then I also told her we have Narcotics Anonymous. … and she had no idea we had NA. Not only did she take the Narcan, now knowing we have NA is gonna help keep her sober.”

One percent of taxes does not generate much of an operating budget. To approach meeting the needs of the community requires a collaborative perspective and outside support. “To run my office I think it was like $189k,” Bauman explained, “and just Community Action Partners alone gave us $311k plus in food for our drive through. … So I think my biggest accomplishment is bringing the community together. … I can see connections, connections, connections, and that makes us a stronger township because of that.”

Because the budget is so small, Avon Township offers very little financial support directly. Instead the office coordinates support through other agencies. “Financially we’re the last ones, but we’ll talk to the Salvation Army, St. Vincent New Paul, and all these other agencies that we work with, and they have different funding, and how we could work together to make things happen,” Bauman also explained her strategy more simply, “if I can’t do it, I’ll find somebody who can.”

This strategy means finding collaborators everywhere. “When we need something, we ask for it. We work with the schools. We work with the senior centers. We work with all these different organizations,” said Bauman, “we work with the Police Department. They have access, they know somebody’s having a situation, they’ll pick up food for them. The [social service] caseworkers will do the same thing because not everybody could always get here.”

Individuals can support the efforts of Avon Township by sharing their experience. Bauman described one valued authority: “She goes to food pantries, so she’s an expert. She knows which food pantry has meat, which food pantry has that, and so we need that. We need people who understand not just our food pantry, but the way the food pantries work in our area.”

When Bauman herself gained knowledge that she knew could help others, she was quick to share it. “I had an injury about a year ago with my knee. I had surgery. I learned how to use the Pace Bus system, the Dial-a-Ride. Then what I did is I went to the senior center and I took seniors who lost their licenses, and couldn’t drive anymore. Let’s learn how to be mobile!” Bauman said.

Increasing awareness of the programs and organizations that can help is a big part of the work. Tours and events are important strategies. “The social workers, they come here. The schools come here, because they know that once they have the tour, … the student that’s struggling … they can either come here directly or they’ll have their family come here,” Bauman said, “and I have big events. … So if someone passes by a table that can help them, sometimes they’ll talk to the people, ya know, and sometimes they’ll take the information and they’ll put it in their pockets, and sometimes that’s just as important cause maybe they don’t want to talk about a situation that’s going on in their life.”

Bilingual information is another important strategy for connecting people with the services that may help them. “Most of our material is in English and Spanish, and if we work with another agency, we’re gonna ask them for that cause that is our community. We wanna reach our community,” said Bauman.

Triaging the many evolving needs of the community is work that is never finished. Bauman hopes collaboration is just as inexhaustible: “It’s never ending, you know what I mean? But the thing is we’re not gonna stop, and we’re always looking for new agencies and new organizations. So when somebody has something, tell us about it!”

Bauman seeks to derive every use from the Avon Township Center for the benefit of her community. One use with benefits that are often underestimated is volunteering. “It’s more than just an office building. As I tell people too, if my building is not being used, it’s just a building. My goal is to have it used everyday with different organizations and different community events and things like that,” Bauman explained, “[without Avon Township, people] would struggle more. But what’s even more that people don’t talk about is them learning to give back and volunteering. They have a purpose.”

Volunteering for or donating to a local Township Government is a more direct way to give back. Witnessing the impact of generosity so close to home can be healing for the benefactors as well. “People would rather give to us than give to Goodwill. People would rather give to us because they see the hallway,” argued Bauman, “we have a lot of people who have lost somebody, and just by giving us their diapers or their clothing or different things like that, they’re able to let go because they know where it’s going. We had somebody who lost his fiance, and he was probably in his late thirties-forties. He brought one pair of pants once, because he just couldn’t let go, and eventually he brought more and more because he knew where it’s going.”

For some, volunteering and donating are crucial sources of purpose. Bauman described one woman who came in with butter, milk, and eggs when the food pantry was struggling to establish: “She has life now! She said that! She says you know she has a purpose, she has life. It’s giving her something, and now she’s a regular volunteer, and she brings joy and happiness.” She isn’t the only one. An 89 year old woman brings cookies and donuts every Friday. “The reason she volunteers is because if she stops, her life stops. She needs to keep moving. And that’s her purpose. She has her story that when she was little, sugar was rationed,” Bauman related, “She remembers what it was like way way back then and so she drives and brings us goodies and treats and sugar and stuff.”

Whether by stocking shelves, delivering food, parting with the belongings of loved ones, or building an outdoor classroom, Bauman believes strongly in the benefits of volunteering for those who do so. “People get so much out of volunteering, but they don’t always realize it at first,” she said, “I believe with all my heart that everybody has a passion and purpose to give back to their community. It’s finding what yours is.”

One way to measure the impact of volunteers is to multiply the hours donated by the minimum wage. “Then that group of people could see how much money, not just volunteering, how much money they helped us. Cause there’s no way we could do it again without them. I only have two staff. I want people to understand how much we appreciated them,” Bauman explained, “if everybody volunteered just two hours a month, I did the math and it’s in millions and millions of dollars, millions and millions of hours in money just by volunteering two hours a month.”

Though it is unrealistic that everyone will volunteer, truly anyone can volunteer. “We have scouts that come, we have sports teams come, we have seniors that come, we have volunteer nights anybody could volunteer. Doesn’t mean it’s gonna be perfect. A little kid or even anybody could put something on the wrong shelf but it’s on the shelf! Somebody else can adjust it but we have to sort the food and do things like that. People volunteer because it’s fun and it’s family and also they could see first hand the impact it’s making in their community. You could volunteer at a lot of other organizations to better people or towns or communities, but when you come to Avon Township, you are bettering your own community and you are helping your neighbors out,” Bauman said.

This year volunteers have been asked to fill out the Volunteer Book to help keep better track of the work happening at Avon Township. “You want people to see that what they’re doing matters, that they are changing the community for the better. So we do keep track of our numbers,” Bauman explained, “we just recently did our townhall meeting and we have all this data to show …, how many people we’ve been helping, the donations that are coming in.”

This data demonstrates the truth Bauman puts faith in. She said, “I live in my own little world, and we can’t change what’s going on in the world, we can’t, but we can change our community and make our community better. And I believe that.”

Each day brings new challenges, like the recent Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP) Crisis. “We hear a family that’s going through a domestic abuse situation and we put them up in a hotel, we have people that are homeless, we have people who were doing really good and then something happens in their life,” Bauman listed, “but our challenge is, it never ends, not just food, it never ends.”

While lack of resources can limit what help Avon Township can offer, the resources that are available aren’t always accepted by those who could benefit most. “I think the hardest part is that we can offer all these resources and people don’t always want to take it,” Bauman also explained common obstacles, “they’re not ready. They’re not ready, you know, whether it’s a drug addiction or something else going on. Mental health plays a huge part. We had a lady, we know she’s homeless, she’s still homeless at this moment in time, and she came into our food pantry one time and she was more into the key chains that somebody donated than the food. You know, mental health is hard, but also, I think we learn not to judge.”

Bauman and her team are strategizing to make it easier for community members to communicate their situation so Avon Township can provide better access to services. Like most things, this is also a community endeavor. “We’re trying to create a family room where … people could come to, the kids could play video games and we have fish and things like that … we also have an art library that was built for an eagle scout project. If we could distract the kids for five or ten or fifteen minutes, they would talk to the case worker. The parents’ stress goes down, the kids are happy, and everybody is able to go on that much faster. But if the kids are stressing, and the parents, the mom is stressing or the dad is stressing, it builds that stress so we try to take that away a little bit,” Bauman said.

Spreading awareness will hopefully prevent the most heartbreaking challenge that Avon Township has to navigate all too often. Bauman stated, “the hardest part is when somebody doesn’t know about us, and it’s too late. It’s too late.”

To keep making a difference wherever possible, it is essential to remember what does go well. “We’re always trying to find the good,” said Bauman, “we always try to find some hope or guidance of things like that, we never know what’s gonna happen here but we have just amazing stories.”

Often the most successful interventions are small and timely. Bauman shared a particularly serendipitous example of a woman who brought her children in for the taffy apples someone else had donated. Once inside she learned of programs that could help her oldest child, who had special needs and would still need support after aging out of the school system. During this conversation with Bauman, someone donated a wheel chair. The woman inquired about it because her daughter’s wheelchair was in rough shape. “I was like, ‘take it, take it, take it!’ That’s how it works, if someone needs it, take it,” related Bauman, “somebody gave us taffy apples, she came in, somebody donated a wheelchair, she left with that. That’s so common for us, that things come in, things go out, sometimes it’s just timing.”

Life changing assistance can be as simple as reviewing resumes, finding job opportunities through agencies, or helping people through the first steps of furthering their education. “It’s not always about big money, it’s those little things that could change somebody’s life,” Bauman argued, “we have a young gentleman who got a job because he got the clothing off our New to Me Section. Those are achievements, you know, helping to feed the people.”

Of all the resources available at Avon Township, in some cases the one that is needed most is a compassionate ear. “Sometimes people just, even though you already know the answer, they just want to be heard, and have that dialogue because sometimes they could go from person to person or agency to agency, and they just want to be heard, they just want to talk,” Bauman said.

Neglecting someone’s story and relying on assumptions risks overlooking someone’s reality. Bauman shared the story of a man whose story was easy to misread based on appearance alone: “you would think he was a drug addict. He wasn’t. He had a stroke in his thirties, and the reason why he wears the big clothes is because it’s easier for him to put on. He can’t brush his hair, he talks kind of off, and he has the ticks, not because he’s a drug addict, because he had a stroke.”

Like a stroke, hard times can strike anyone at anytime. Bauman hopes Avon Township can empower community members through those seasons. “Sometimes people could be up here, something happens to their job, they lose a spouse, I mean you just don’t know,” explained Bauman, “I believe that when you’re struggling it does not mean it’s forever. It’s just where you are in that moment in time. And I want people to remember that. Just because that’s where you are now does not mean anything. Just keep moving forward. Do not stop. Do not quit. Believe, and ask for help. That’s okay!”

Despite the small operating budgets, the proximity of township government to its constituents offers immense potential to address their day to day needs and crises. Avon Township exemplifies the strategy that exceeds the limits of any budget. Bauman put it best: “I learn from the people. I really learn from the people and the ideas they have… if it’s gonna better the community, let’s figure out how we’re gonna do it. Let’s figure out who we’re gonna bring in. Let’s figure out how we’re gonna get it out into the community and let people know about it.”

Changing our corner of the world for the better can, and should, be as simple as that.

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