Personal Accounts

by Keri Graham

Keri Graham of Mount Prospect turned her hair into a fun, colorful statement during the COVID-19 pandemic. 

“At the end of 2019, I had decided to let my natural gray (ok, silver) grow out and continue with just highlights. It was becoming too costly to cover the gray and since I was approaching 50, I felt it was time to embrace my natural color as the base,” Keri said. “So, when the COVID stay- at-home order went into effect, I was slightly ahead of the curve. I had been in for a hair appointment on February 18 and didn’t get in again until May.”

“To be honest, I’ve been playing with vibrant colors for the past 5+ years,” she continued. “I have tried everything from bolds to pastels. It started with me deciding to go pink. I had always wanted crazy hair colors when I was younger, but my parents weren’t exactly on board with that plan.”

These days she said she does get stares, but the reactions of others are mostly positive. “Very often, I’ll get ‘I wish I were brave enough to do that’ and I respond with ‘just go for it’!” 

Graham’s most memorable encounter came last February while having a date day with her husband in the city. She said she was stopped multiple times by strangers, commenting on how much they loved her hair.

A year into the pandemic, Graham said, “Now, my silver is clearly showing through under the vibrant colors and I am happy with the end result!”

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The Mount Prospect Farmers Market, run every Sunday morning by the Mount Prospect Lions Club in one of the train station parking lots, carried on in a slightly-diminished manner during 2020. 

Prior to opening for the 2020 season, the four-person committee that coordinates the local staple consulted with the Village and the Illinois Environmental Health Department; visited other local Farmers Markets to see how they were conducting their markets; and studied the CDC guidelines so they could relay them to the vendors. 

“Since we had to social distance, our vendor space was limited and we wanted to have enough room for parking, as well. Fortunately, some vendors decided not to participate. Overall, I don’t think business was down, but attendance may have been,” said Fred Steinmiller, chairman.

“It was a big adjustment,” he continued. “For instance, we needed additional Lions to monitor all the exits and entrances, armed with masks, gloves and hand sanitizer. And finding people willing to work on Sunday mornings is tough.”

For the most part, according to Steinmiller, the public accepted the restrictions and followed the guidelines. He said that residents and guests were generally very appreciative of the MP Lions’ efforts, although they did receive some pushback from shoppers on the mask mandate.

“But we reminded them that this was a guideline set by the CDC and since we were operating on Village property, we had to comply,” he added.

During the 2021 season the Lions hope to gradually add more vendors and maybe some special events. The Sister Cities Commission also hopes to bring back their French Market one Sunday in September, but social distancing requirements, if they persist, might make that impossible. 

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Photo credits; William Wille

by Kiersten Cannizzaro

During the spring of 2020, in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, professional photographer Kiersten Cannizzaro offered free group photos via her photography Facebook page and the Mount Prospect Neighbors page. The response was amazing. About 80 families and even a number of businesses in Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights, Park Ridge, Chicago, Palatine, Elk Grove, Wheeling, Lake In The Hills, Elgin and Algonquin took her up on her offer!

“I had seen a clip on the news about other photographers doing porch portraits and I thought it was a great idea,” Cannizzaro explained. “I had seen how much restaurants in our area were struggling and thought I could do some shoots and ask people in return to order from local restaurants to help boost business. I thought this would be the perfect scenario to get me out of my four walls and interact with people at a safe distance and make people smile again (which makes my heart smile) while giving back to the local restaurant businesses that were needing business now more than ever.”

“And shortly after that, I learned Station 34 was donating meals to first responders so I started asking for donations and sending the money to Station 34 where Joe, the owner, was making and delivering meals to police stations, fire stations, hospitals, nursing homes, public works etc.”

“I started my career at Leo Burnett Advertising and there I was trained to always be looking for ways to promote a product or business, but this was really something different,” Cannizzaro said. “The pandemic brought out a lot of good in people. It made so many of us want to do something good; to make a difference; or to help in some way.”

“I’m not a doctor or in healthcare, so what good could I do?” she continued. “I can make people smile! So that is exactly what I did. I made people smile and then helped feed those that are helping take care of those who are sick. It felt good to do something nice for people and to make people feel better at a time when we all really weren’t feeling so great. Maybe I wasn’t saving lives, but I was saving a few smiles and that was just as good for me.”

Looking back on that time, Cannizzaro said that she has many wonderful memories of her photo shoots.  There were the graduates who didn’t get the big commencement pomp and circumstance; the first wedding anniversary when they shared their wedding cake; the baby announcements; and the First Communions with girls in their beautiful white dresses with gloves and boys in their suits, all growing up with such dignity and grace in these unprecedented times. “There were also lots of families with their proud service members, police officers, firemen, nurses, doctors, teachers, as well as the proud parents sending their sons and daughters off to the Army and Navy or off to college, all with tears streaming down their faces and beaming with pride.” 

“There were so many happy faces and goofy families who made the spring of 2020 a better spring overall,” she added.

Randview Highlands Artwork

When Karen Luehr and her 11-year-old daughter, Emma, found themselves locked down in their Randview Highlands home east of Prospect High School in the spring of 2020 because of COVID-19, they quickly began putting hand-drawn photos in their windows and doing chalk drawings on the sidewalk in front of their home – all to entertain the increased number of walkers suddenly parading by each day. Emma was the artist.

“Our neighbors all seemed to love it!  The artwork brought a smile to people’s faces,” Karen said.

The Luehr home artwork even ended up on a neighborhood scavenger hunt!