GreatNews.Life Student Voices: Lake Central feels safety, community and culture in numbers

What’s recently happened?

On July 17-19, the members of both the Cesare Battisti Lodge and the Italian American Women’s Club of Lake County made major fundraising strides at Festa Italiana in Schererville. The event was full of fun and flavor.

“I definitely like the Grape-stomping contest and the Spaghetti-eating contest. I have not been able to participate in either of those, because I’m working the Festa, but they’re really fun and engage the Festa-goers. The kids really enjoy getting into the pasta-eating, so then they can win,” Italian American Women’s Club member Gina Geiss said.

For volunteers, one of the most exciting parts of the Festa is meeting old and new acquaintances alike.

“My favorite activities of the Festa are probably getting involved with booths – any kind of booth, whether it’s selling cookies or merchandise. That’s because you get to see so many people and talk to them; they talk to you and everyone gets to know one another in the community,” Italian American Women’s Club member Rose Giovane said.

Planning an event like this can come with hurdles from all angles. Sometimes, these event planners need to run through their checklist several times before they are ready to go.

“I am predominantly a food distributor. That’s what Applewood Farms is: logistics, handling product and making sure you’re crossing off your ‘t’s or dotting your ‘i’s. On that end, balancing everything is demanding for a festival,” Applewood Farms Vendor Quinn Mulligan said. “I can tell you that no matter how many times I ran through my checklist, there were a couple things I forgot; that’s a pretty common thing for how much goes into these events from a vendor basis.”

Plenty of time goes into the planning process, along with consideration of many external factors.

“We have 48-hour fermented sourdough, so it takes a couple days to make the dough. We have to make sure that we have enough dough ready to go, because you can’t just make the pizzas and they’re ready,” Battista’s Artisan Pizzeria Vendor Joe Gaal said. “It takes time. There’s a cold fermentation process and a real science behind it all.”

Italian-American pride is the main focus and goal of the Festa.

“I’m a quarter Calabrese, so that means my family is from Calabria in Italy,” Mulligan said. “My family had been members of the Villa Cesare Hall, when they were in the harbor in East Chicago. I’ve always met some people over there. Supporting the community first and foremost and then the heritage along with it can’t be beaten.”

What’s coming up?

Walking towards acceptance, Logan’s Love, a non-profit organization, plans their annual Autism Walk for August 23. It will take place in Dyer and support special needs children, as well as their families.

“It is a gathering of everybody for one purpose. Everyone’s there to honor Logan and to support Autism awareness. People have mentioned this numerous times, thanking us for it. They feel like they’re being heard and seen without being judged,” Chairperson Georgianne Glavas said.

The walk has a common structure from year to year and serves to honor Logan Ruiz, an Autistic boy who passed away on August 27, 2022. Nicole Reveliotis, his mother, serves as the founder of Logan’s Love.

“They do have me out there for a speech, and then after the speech is done, as well as while the speech is going on, we pass out balloons. After the speech, we let them out unitedly, into the air. Usually, we play a song dedicated to my son. That’s the start of the walk and we’ll lead the walk, but before that we have the foam blast going on,” Reveliotis said.

There are many activities for children and families to participate in together.

“We have a foam blast, because Logan loved foam. It’s this jumbo cannon that spits out bubbles, so it will cover a big area,” Glavas said. “It’s with Autistic children and other special needs children. Sometimes it’s sensory. With the bubbles, it’s like you are having a bubble bath without dealing with the water, even though the water is making the bubbles.”

The main purpose of the event is to simultaneously provide education about neurodivergence and connect people from different backgrounds.

“It shows unity and teaches people empathy. We interview people and it’s a place where they get to feel comfortable, safe and understood. I think our work is giving that to the families alongside something that’s theirs, because every other event in the county is geared toward every other neurotypical kid,” Reveliotis said.

Neurodivergence is represented and supported in a plethora of mediums.

“I have a chairperson for our resource tables, who reaches out to the various resources to help special needs families on issues they have in order to educate them and let them know what’s out there in terms of help, whether it’s ABA (Applied Behavior Analysis) therapy, an ID card from the Sheriff’s Department or a variety of different tables,” Glavas said.

Such an event brings people together from both a wide range of different locations and standalone experiences.

“It’s not just Dyer; it’s people from all over the county and outside of the county who come and it brings people together for one amazing cause: to see the children smile while there. Some of their mannerisms or the stims they do remind me of Logan, so I feel Logan there,” Reveliotis said. “I love bringing the community together and having other people who are not involved in the special needs community to come too.”

Community member spotlight

Jesse Hernandez is the director of the Tri-Town Safety Village in Schererville. He also runs another non-profit organization, the Region Basketball Club, that is based in Cedar Lake and has events around Northwest Indiana.

“We do outdoor camps, indoor camps and leagues, as well as benefits for kids who have passed. We try to teach kids how to communicate with one another, with exercises at our events where we’ll teach kids how to talk to each other, introduce things, shake hands and work on body language. Once we work on the introduction, then we do a mock job interview,” Hernandez said.

As he works with children of all ages, he is able to see their long-term growth.

“Some of these kids who I first met five years ago are now in college. Some of the life skills that they worked out for us have actually helped them get a job. One of the players who played for us applied for the Eli Lilly Scholarship. He won, and said that one of the reasons why he won is because when they interviewed him, he looked back on what he learned in our interview sessions at our basketball program,” Hernandez said.

His other main non-profit work is at the Tri-Town Safety Village and involves helping all ages learn how to be safe from multiple potential dangers.

“We do events in the summer. For example, we brought in the FBI and it gave classes for the elderly to teach them how not to get scammed,” Hernandez said. “We also do classes for the elderly for fall prevention. We bring a firefighter in to teach them how not to fall and to be safe.”

There are many popular topics for discussion in regards to the program’s main goal: safety.

“We’re able to reach kids at a young age and teach them the importance of all the safety issues: fire safety, police safety, urban safety. We get daily calls about people wanting to visit and bring their families, which is a huge priority to build communities,” Hernandez said. “We have ideas to improve our education for older kids, like teenagers. I want to work on drug safety, alongside teaching kids how to socially interact, which I think is huge in a public setting.”