By Dan Irvin
Championship baseball teams these days like the Cardinals and – dare I say it – the Cubs in post-game interviews extoll that their team has a “next man” attitude. It’s a basic principal of teamwork, that win-or-lose the next man in the lineup carries on reinforcing your success or correcting your failure.
Over the past couple of weekends I’ve had the pleasure of facilitating the Town of Normal’s brilliantly conceived and excellently organized series of reminiscences over the Town’s past 150 years. I think by the time you hear this the entire series will be available to watch through the Town’s website and YouTube; well worth your time when you get tired of baseball or other Network fare.
In considering our community’s history – and way more successes than the opposite – I’m taken with the repetition over the years of somebody’s inspiration for improvement, growth, or quality-of-life enhancement, followed closely by a “can-do” approach and this “next-person-up” attitude.
Most of these contributors along the way to our communities and our posterity have gone unsung. Now, you may accuse me of overstating the following, but the announcements of Tina Sipula’s retirement and the resulting closure of Clare House after Thanksgiving issue a loud and clear “help wanted” advertisement to all.
The Clare House history is documented elsewhere and by others. How many of us I wonder made simple contributions where we could, but left the heavy lifting to Ms. Sipula and the volunteers of the House. We carried on our busy lives with the comfort of knowing these saints were there to care for our less fortunate.
It’s clear that there remains an existing and willing infrastructure for serving our homeless, and hungry, and many-ways unfortunate, but nevertheless the Clare House closing is an alarm ringing that’s seeking – in our communities’ long tradition – the next person who will step up.
Dan Irvin is Vice-President of the Bloomington Public Library Foundation Board, and a member of the Heartland Community College Foundation Board.
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