On Saturday, August 20, 2011, the squeals of happy children resonated through the blocks surrounding 173rd Street and Ozark Avenue, where a summer festival for kids with autism shook up the town.
The Tinley Park Summer Fest was an effort to raise funds and community awareness for the often overlooked Easter Seals Autism Therapeutic School in Tinley Park, where more than 100 children from 56 school districts have learned to get by without all the amenities other neighborhood schools take for granted.
From noon until 10:00 p.m., families played bean bag games, danced with Chicago mascots, and listened to live music. Entertainment was provided by Joey Midnight and the Fleshtones, a Chicago 1960’s tribute band, and Yard Fulla Cars, a rock/country band from Chicago. Parents mingled in the beer tent. Kids got their faces painted like superheroes.
But the real heroes at Tinley Park’s Autism Therapeutic School are the teachers and therapists who work with these kids every day. These folks go out of their way to give their students every opportunity and advantage other local school children receive every day.
Mary Ellen Bucci, school administrator in Tinley, hoped the festival would help raise awareness for the autism school and its students, who “like everything other kids like.”
Bucci said Saturday that she hopes to raise the funds to add an aquatic aspect to the school’s new playground. She added that sometimes her school’s kids are overlooked by the community.
Until the hard-to-miss hoopla of Saturday’s festival, some Tinley Park residents didn’t know the school existed.
“I was on my way to the store when I saw the party,” said Jun Lin, who lives less than a mile from the school. “I thought maybe this is new, like an opening day celebration.”
The Easter Seals Autism Therapeutic School in Tinley Park is part of Easter Seals Metropolitan Chicago, which has a 15-year track record of helping children with autism. Licensed by the state of Illinois to teach kids between the ages of 3 and 22, the school teaches those diagnosed with autism, emotional behavior disorders and learning disabilities. The school incorporates a modified academic curriculum focusing on adaptive living skills, offers speech and art therapy, and provides an on-site after school program.