Beverly musician supports March 3 Kiwanis event

The Kiwanis Club of Southwest Chicago (Southwest Club) is hosting a special event on Tuesday, March 3, to announce a new project, the establishment of an accessible playground in the Beverly/Morgan Park/Mt. Greenwood area for children with mobility issues and other special needs. An interesting twist to the event is that the entertainment will be supplied by a musician from Beverly who happens to have his own “it’s a small world” story about Kiwanis.

It’s well recognized that children benefit from outdoor playgrounds. The exercise in the fresh air and sunshine is good for physical health and development and contributes to positive social and behavior skills. Studies show it even increases creativity, self-esteem and self-confidence.

All too often, however, children who could benefit tremendously from playground activity are excluded because they cannot use the equipment, the swings and slides and all, due to mobility issues or other special needs. They can only sit on the sidelines and watch.

This inequity is not lost on Kiwanis International, the service club founded in 1915 that today, with 600,000 members worldwide, is still going strong. The Kiwanis mission is to serve children and strengthen communities. The Southwest Club, started in 1938, recently contributed to GoBabyGo which adapted child-sized motorized cars to serve as mobility devices for children with spina bifida. Now the club is turning its attention to accessible playgrounds.

Accessible playgrounds include specially designed equipment such as swings for wheelchairs, climbing domes with multiple ways to reach the top, transfer stations allowing children in wheelchairs to move to play stations, and raised plant beds for gardening experiences. Even something as basic as just adapting picnic tables to accommodate wheelchairs becomes part of an accessible playground.

But Kiwanis cannot do this project without manpower and community support, according to Mary Zeronas, a former Beverly resident and member and past President of the Southwest Club who currently serves as Kiwanis Lieutenant Governor for District 4 in Illinois, which covers the far south suburbs.

“The club’s biggest need is manpower to provide more services to local children. The accessible playground is a community project that will be Kiwanis-driven but for and by the community. Other organizations, groups and businesses will all be invited to become involved,” said Mary.

To share this project with the public, and with an eye toward member recruitment, the Southwest Club is holding a social event on Tuesday, March 3, from 6:30 p.m. to 8:30 p.m., at 115 Bourbon Street, 3359 W. 115th Street in Merrionette Park. Hors d’oeuvres, pop, wine and beer will be served, and a cash bar will be available. There is a cover charge of $15 per person for the event to help offset actual costs and this will go toward membership fees for any new members. Reservations are requested for a head count; call Ron Kulak at 708/738-1197. Ron is the current President of the Southwest Club and will be the host for the evening.

Musical entertainment will be supplied by Blend Acoustic, a well-regarded duo that combines acoustic guitars with vocal harmonies. This duo has appeared at many venues from the House of Blues to Morton Arboretum. The members of Blend Acoustic are Sean Cantorna and Wes Cichosz, and it is Sean who has the surprise Kiwanis connection.

Sean, the son of Bernardo and Joan Flynn Cantorna, grew up in Beverly on the 9900 block of South Bell Avenue. He attended Sutherland grammar school, St. Barnabas for religious education, and Marist High School.

Residing next door to the Cantorna family was the Stone family, Bob, Marilyn and daughter Linda. The Cantornas and the Stones became fast friends.

When the two families first met, the Cantornas had two children. They went on to welcome five more, and it became a beloved ritual for Marilyn Stone to greet each new baby.

Explained Marilyn, “When Joan came home from the hospital the first time, I carried the new baby in from the car. After the baby was settled, we celebrated with a glass of sherry. We did this five times altogether! The Cantorna children are very dear to me.”

When Marilyn was asked to be baby Sean’s godmother, she readily accepted.

The Cantornas grew up and went their separate ways, and Bernardo and Joan are now deceased. Marilyn keeps in touch with the adult Cantorna children.

And in recent years, Marilyn and her daughter Linda Stone Lamberty became members of the Kiwanis Club of Southwest Chicago.

While entertaining some of the Cantornas, including Sean, at dinner one night at Smith Village where she now resides, Marilyn made an offhand comment about Kiwanis. Sean responded he had a Kiwanis experience to share.

Sean is a teacher as well as a musician. He has a bachelor’s degree in business and marketing and was employed as a project manager with a company that dealt in granite counter tops, but an economic recession caused him to reconsider his options. After college, he had spent a year in Spain and knew the language and was interested in the culture. He enrolled in Quincy University to earn a master’s degree in bilingual and multilingual education.

The Quincy program included an alternative experience certification component. In 2012, while teaching fifth grade in a Sauk Village school to gain his required experience, he was assigned a mentor who also happened to be a member of Kiwanis.

Kiwanis paid for Sean’s class to receive copies of Blue Balliett’s books, including The Wright 3, a mystery set in Frank Lloyd Wright’s Robie House in Hyde Park, Chicago. Kiwanis picked up the tab for the class to take a field trip to the house for its mystery tour, and to have lunch in a restaurant on South Shore Drive so they could enjoy the lake.

Marilyn asked Sean who the mentor was, and he responded it was Mary Meike. It turned out Marilyn knew Mary well. In fact, Mary is now the Kiwanis Lieutenant Governor for Division 3 in Illinois, which includes the territory for the Southwest Club.

The next time Marilyn and Mary were together, Marilyn shared that her godson was one of Mary’s mentorees – and Mary remembered Sean well.

Mary, a retired Chicago Public School teacher and principal with vast experience in everything from summer school and after-school programs to union activities, had accepted the job at Quincy University to be a mentor and observer/evaluator for those students going through the alternative experience program.

“I was assigned to teachers and schools all over the south Chicagoland area. It was pure chance that I was assigned to work with Sean,” said Mary.

Mary explained that the Hickory Hills Kiwanis Club made the Balliett books available to schools, and then paid for school groups to go on the special mystery tours that the Robie House previously conducted.

Sean reported that the class had a great time.

“The students really loved the book, The Wright 3. Mary came to the class for presentations the students were making. She announced that she was taking the entire class to the Robie House for a tour and then out for lunch. Most of these students had never experienced anything like this before,” said Sean.

He added that Kiwanis arranged and paid for everything from the books to the bus to the tour to lunch. The class even took a walk to get as close as they could to President Obama’s house, which thrilled the students.

Today, Sean teaches English as a second language and classes in Spanish in the Brookwood School District. He continues his musical career, also, which started in his undergraduate days when he wowed the audience at St. Mary’s University of Minnesota with his rendition of “American Pie” at a talent show and his picture landed on the front page of the school paper. He further honed his skills in Spain. Back home, he has appeared with Gladys Knight and the Pips and other well-known musicians, and plays country clubs, corporate events, festivals and other popular venues as a solo act or as part of Blend Acoustic.

Sean even combines both careers. He sings with his students all the time, and the school administration loves it.

Sean was a natural choice to be the entertainment at the March 3 Kiwanis event when Linda Stone Lamberty made the suggestion, and he readily accepted the offer to play. His experience as a teacher is just one example of how Kiwanis works every day to improve the lives of children locally.

“I’m very happy to play at this event and to support this effort of the Kiwanis organization,” said Sean.

He’ll be reunited with his mentor at the event. Mary will be there to discuss the Kiwanis organization and the playground initiative.

“This is a wonderful and very important project,” said Mary. “And it’s definitely going to happen.”