Joliet junior high students learn life lessons from elders

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Bob Irwin, a resident of Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home in Joliet, spends Friday afternoon with Roberto Castillo (left) and Angel Pinto, students from Gompers Junior High School. | Submitted by Sandy Zalewski

Updated: March 14, 2012 8:08AM

JOLIET — Lewis Barnes carried a puzzle box with a picture of a mountain meadow, full of tall grass and wildflowers with snow-covered slopes in the distance.

The puzzle was a gift from Alex Diaz, a Joliet student visiting Barnes and other residents of Our Lady of Angels Retirement Home. On Friday, Diaz won two bingo games during a visit with his classmates. He gave the second prize to Barnes as a gift.

The students were from the 21st Century Kids Club After-School Program at Gompers Junior High School in Joliet. They join the club to get an academic edge, and they also benefit from field trips, character education and career awareness.

During this particular trip, these students in the green springtime of their years got to talk with men and women who are at the top of the mountain, and have seen much on their way up.

Generations meet

Eighth-graders Angel Pinto and Roberto Castillo played bingo with Bob Irwin, 93, who lived in Plainfield for 50 years before coming to Our Lady of Angels.

Irwin helped found the Plainfield Athletic Association in 1952. He also was a longtime member of the Will County Old Timers Baseball Association, serving as president in 1981.

Irwin won a bingo match, and student Josue Martinez presented him with a gift-wrapped prize.

Pinto and Castillo also met Mary Rose Bucciarelli, wife of the late Joliet-area musician Ernie Bucciarelli. She shared memories of her husband, a native of Italy. He played the mandolin with a choir from the Cathedral of St. Raymond during a 1988 papal audience at the Vatican.

Also on Friday, eighth-grader Daniella Zavala met June Tanck, 92, formerly of Kenosha, Wis., and Sister Rose Spatny, 92 but feeling “Sweet Sixteen,” formerly of Chicago.

Like his classmate Diaz, student Sam Desiderio was on a roll Friday afternoon, winning two bingo matches. He gave his second prize to Dora Geary, who lived in Clinton, Iowa, and Joliet before coming to Our Lady of Angels. Also at the table was Jerry White, 89, formerly of Manhattan.

Desiderio joined the 21st Century club to get ahead academically. Along with Friday’s activity, he also has taken a field trip to the Inwood Multi-Purpose Center in Joliet to participate in gymnastics, basketball and football.

Fabion Mabry, a Gompers eighth-grader, joined the club for academics. He has been on several field trips, including a visit to Shedd Aquarium in Chicago.

Diaz participated in the club’s field trip to Starved Rock State Park this summer. And on Friday, he presented his gift, a puzzle, to Lewis “Duke” Barnes, 80, of Joliet.

Character education

The 21st Century program is made possible through a grant from the Illinois State Board of Education. The grant provides students in second through eighth grades at several Joliet schools with daily tutoring in reading and mathematics, character education, career awareness, technology, recreation, art and field trips.

Gompers students also visited Sunny Hill Nursing Home on Friday. Richard Kelch, a teacher at Gompers, led the trip to Our Lady of Angels.

With patience, young people learn to piece together the words of the older generation, and a picture forms.

Duke speaks from a snowy peak. Mary Rose’s laughter is like a mandolin in Italy. Bob’s memories are full of kids playing ball and growing tall as meadow grass.