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Glenview interfaith service unifies community
Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Glenview invited 250 parishioners and clergy to the annual Interfaith Thanksgiving Service on Nov. 22. | BENJAMIN TCHAOU~for Sun-Times Media
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Updated: December 30, 2012 6:10AM
GLENVIEW — Jill Brickman stood before the Thanksgiving Eve church assembly in Glenview and defied people not having enough to eat.
“Hunger is unacceptable in our community,” said Brickman, supervisor of Northfield Township that serves Glenview, Northfield and Northbrook with a food pantry.
She joined 250 people in the annual the Interfaith Thanksgiving Service held at Our Lady of Perpetual Help church in Glenview.
“We’ve helped more than 700 households so far this year and the need continues to grow,” she said.
“Imagine what it’s like to reach out to help your neighbor and they’re there for you.”
For more than 20 years, a different religious group in the village has hosted the service that emphasizes strong fellowship among the faiths.
Jews, Muslims, Christians and Mormons attended the 45-minute service Nov. 22 and donated clothes and food to the pantry.
The service’s money collection was divided among the Northfield Township Food Pantry, Youth Services’ Easing Fund and Glenview Police Citizens’ Emergency Assistance Fund.
Dan Fraser serves on the board of directors for Youth Services of Glenview/Northbrook.
“Last year we saw significant reduced funding from agencies such as United Way. Your donations helped 3,500 kids this year.
“Your generous contributions have continued to allow us to help the kids,” he said.
The Interfaith Thanksgiving Service was just hours after a truce ended the most deadly cross-border fighting between Israel and the Gaza Strip in four years.
The Rev. Mark Pendleton of Glenview New Church has been the service’s lead organizer since 2007.
“I don’t think what’s been happening along the Gaza Strip is a special impetuous for us getting together this year,” he said.
“But we would like to think it’s a good reason for us to stay linked together. In our individual hearts and minds, yes we want to be united.”
In his sermon Pendleton quoted parts of Abraham Lincoln’s proclamation in 1863 that made the last Thursday of November a national day of thanksgiving.
“To these bounties, which are so constantly enjoyed that we are prone to forget the source from which they come, others have been added, which are of so extraordinary a nature, that they cannot fail to penetrate and soften even the heart which is habitually insensible to the ever watchful providence of Almighty God,” stated the proclamation.
A member of Perpetual Help for 45 years, Glenview resident Pat Haverty said the Interfaith Service has continued because of the local clergy.
“It’s been the openness of the pastors and priests involved over the years,” she said.
Tom Hickey, pastor of Perpetual Help, said 10 people from different houses of worship attended the service, including Chicago Temple of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints in Glenview.
“We gather as a community of Glenview, just like different people came together for the first time to be thankful here in America,” he said.
The Glenview Clergy Association sponsors the annual service.
