Children's Museum in Oak Lawn to Host Annual Dinner

The Children’s Museum in Oak Lawn has announced its 2015 “Soaring Spirit” Honorees -- Ann Willingham and Marge Joy. They will be recognized at the Museum’s annual Volunteer Recognition Dinner.

Ann Willingham, SPHR, served on the Museum’s Board of Directors from 2009-2015. During her tenure, Ann was instrumental in board governance and board recruitment. She also acted as a human resources advisor and helped develop the process necessary to serve on the Museum’s Board of Directors. Ann was with the Museum through the location move in 2009 and played a key role in working with the Executive Director in the creation of the employee handbook.

“Ann was instrumental in helping move our Board of Directors in a positive direction. Her knowledge of human resource policies and procedures were key in not only being a sound advisor to me, but to the board recruitment process as well,” said Adam Woodworth, the Museum’s executive director. “One of the things she did early on was create a board assessment tool to help us identify the type of talent our board was lacking. Those results were used in board recruitment efforts.”

The second “Soaring Spirit” honoree is Marge Joy. Marge was with the Museum from day one, when the organization was just an idea that Carol Marsh had dreamed about. Marge supports the Museum through volunteering and serving on the Museum’s board of directors.

“Marge was a Chicago school principal and brought a lot of educational value to the exhibits and programs we were doing at our location in the park,” said Woodworth.

Marge is also a strong supporter of the Museum’s annual Princess Holiday Ball and helps families who would not normally be able to participate.

“Marge is one of our fairy godmothers,” says Woodworth. “She’ll meet the princess and, usually, mom, at Carson’s to purchase the girl’s dress and shoes for the event. We have several donors who support this effort, but Marge takes it a step further and actively participates in the process. We are so grateful that she does this.”

The Museum will be recognizing Willingham, Joy, and other volunteers on July 22 at the Garden Chalet in Worth at 6:00 PM. The event is an Italian theme. There will be games and activities for the adults during the reception. Tickets are just $25 each and can be purchased at www.cmoaklawn.org.

“This event gets a lot of great support. Often we see our members, visitors and even strangers purchase tickets to the event… then they call me to tell me that they would like to donate their tickets to a volunteer and their family. The generosity of people for this event is just amazing,” says Woodworth.