🌱 Oak Park Police Chief To Retire + Fenwick Student Aids Ukraine

Good morning, OPRF! Here's your news for Saturday.

First, today's weather:

Windy and colder. High: 37 Low: 24.

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Here are the top 5 stories today in Oak Park-River Forest:

1. Chief LaDon Reynolds announced he will retire April 15 after 28 years with the Oak Park Police Department. "It is time for me to move on and let a new generation of law enforcement professionals take the lead," he said Friday. Village Manager Kevin Jackson said the village will conduct a national search for Reynolds' replacement. (VOP)

2. Focus Development broke ground last week on a seven-story apartment complex at Marion and Pleasant streets. Construction is expected to take 16 months. (Wednesday Journal)

3. Dr. Theresa Chapple-McGruder will discuss “The Lifespan of a Pandemic” on Monday at The Nineteenth Century Club. The head of the Oak Park Health Department will explain “the science of pandemics, the complications in counting cases and measuring severity of cases.” (Nineteenth Century Club)

4. Fenwick High School sophomore Anna Androsyuk is raising funds to support her native Ukraine. She and her family emigrated from Ukraine less than 10 years ago and still has “a lot of family over there.” She has already raised more than $1,200 for Save the Children’s efforts to help Ukrainian youth. (Fenwick)

5. Washington Irving Elementary School custodian Frank DiPaolo has been named a finalist for Custodian of the Year; an annual contest presented by Cintas with a grand prize of $10,000. DiPaolo has been with Irving for 25 years and was chosen for the top 10 out of 2,200 nominations. Public voting is open through April 15. (D97)

Today in Oak Park-River Forest:

• Donate to the Boy Scouts collection drive at St. Mother Theodore Guerin Catholic Parish. (8 a.m.)
• Follow the story trail at Trailside Museum. (9 a.m.)
• Learn about gouache at Dole Center. (10 a.m.)
• Kribi Coffee hosts a tasting at Forest Park Public Library. (10:30 a.m.)
• KidCreate Studio hosts a paint night inspired by “Encanto.” (5:30 p.m.)

From my notebook:

• Oak Park Regional Housing Center Executive Director Athena Williams spoke to the Tribune this week about “the theft of generational wealth.” (Paid source: Tribune)
• Save the date for the Annual River Forest Bike Exchange on April 9. (VRF)
• The Symphony of Oak Park & River Forest will perform and celebrate youth soloists tomorrow at Concordia. (Patch)
• River Forest Public Library will screen “The Wind That Shakes the Barley” tomorrow as part of its Global Film Forum. (Library)
• Helen Cirese of Oak Park made the Tribune’s list of groundbreaking Chicago women for becoming the youngest woman in Illinois to earn a law license in 1921. (Paid source: Tribune)

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That's all for today! The Daily will return to your inbox on Tuesday, March 29. Have a wonderful weekend.

— Georgi Presecky

About me: Georgi is a Chicago-based newsletter writer and partner content curator. She spent five years on the entertainment beat for FF2 Media covering film festivals across the U.S. Her feature articles have been recognized with awards from the Illinois Women's Press Association and National Federation of Press Women. As editor-in-chief of the Lewis University newspaper, she and her staff earned honors from the Associated Collegiate Press and American Scholastic Press Associations. She began working for Patch in 2019.