Barbara and Sheldon Stein, a Near North Side couple of over 60 years, called the Rev. Michael Pfleger in 2015. Even as nonparishoners, the retired teacher and retired attorney knew of his work in the Auburn Gresham community and wanted to be part of the good the St. Sabina priest does.
The result: A community garden on the church’s property (planted in 2018) and The Barbara and Sheldon Stein Scholarship Fund (founded in 2016), which aids high school students.
“Education is the most important thing,” said Sheldon, 90. “Friends fall away and disappear and here’s an opportunity to make a new friendship, a new relationship and it’s not one of talk, but one of do. For older people, it’s very important to have these kinds of relationships and even better to have one that amounts to a wonderful project.”
The couple, along with Pfleger, selects students who are interested in college but need help financing it. To receive the “Stein Fund,” students must demonstrate financial need, be connected to the church congregation in some way, submit an essay or letter about why they should receive the scholarship, maintain a B grade average and, once done with their degree, give back to the community from which they came.
Funded by the Steins via “a lifetime of working, saving, investing,” the scholarship has helped 10 students since its inception, including Ivry Hall, a recent freshman at Alabama State University.
The young boxer lost both parents prior to college and said that had it not been for the Steins’ scholarship, he doesn’t know where he would be now.
“Of course, not in college,” he said. “If this didn’t happen, I could find myself back on the street. But look at me now, I’m in college and I finished my first year with all A’s and one B. I’m doing great. I’m grateful to them.” Hall plans to major in business and open up a boxing gym one day.
Pfleger and the Steins are currently looking for applicants for the upcoming school year, while the first scholarship recipients will graduate in 2020.
“I think Barbara and Sheldon are more the exception than the norm,” Pfleger said. “There’s a lot of people who say ‘I want to do something, but don’t know what.’ I say every Sunday at the end of the service: Be blessed and be a blessing. There’s an obligation that comes with blessings, and they have done that. They are able to affect lives.”
Barbara’s advice to other retirees: Look outside your bubble and do something for somebody else. “You have to try to help somebody who doesn’t have as much by way of opportunity, but deserves it,” said the 83-year-old. “It’s very invigorating to be able to do this and to get to know people like Ivry. It truly becomes inspiring.”
If Yvonne Green’s white mohawk doesn’t grab you, her ability to do the full splits might. The 70-year-old described herself as a “partier” in the 1970s, as well as overweight and a smoker. The Bronzeville native took up running in the 1980s and, during the transition, started wandering into health food stores and researching holistic living.
Her “a-ha moment” had arrived.
Green’s self-improvement journey prompted her to start YBG & Associates, a South Side holistic health consulting and communication business. Since 1983, she has conducted seminars and workshops focused on “whole person wellness” — mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, social, cultural, political and financial — for individuals and organizations throughout Chicagoland.
In addition to working for her paying clientele, the Baby Boomer volunteers her services for struggling populations, including people reentering society after incarceration and those in substance abuse programs and transitional living facilities. Green has worked with Prosperity House, a transitional living program for women and men on the city’s South Side, for seven years.
“Most of the women I have are recovering from drug addiction, some are homeless, some are coming from incarceration — I got the gamut,” said Beverly Dawson, founder and CEO. “Ms. Green does maybe a month’s worth of classes … teaching the women how to love themselves, raise their consciousness and self-esteem up, and how to take care of themselves and how important it is to take the time to work on themselves. She helps the women heal, and the women just love her.”
“Once I found this way, I could never go back,” Green said. “Your health is your foundation to your wealth. If you have a strong foundation — it doesn’t matter what you do, you’ll be able to sustain. You change, you keep adjusting, you don’t retire from your life.”
Green says her holistic approach transcends age limitations because she provides clients a strong foundation of information and practical recommendations that will make a difference long term. For the older set, she gives advice about muscle strength, flexibility and endurance: “You have to keep it moving.” And she emphasizes the importance of staying connected to society: “Social interactions are a must-have.”
“An artist uses their skill and imagination to create a thing of beauty and that should be yourself — you’re creating a thing of beauty, your life, yourself,” she said. “I’ve gone through different phases of my life. I see how the body changes, and the challenges the body faces during those changes. I think I can be much more effective now than I’ve ever been.”
Green says self-love is key for being happy and living longer, and she plans to keep helping people meet that goal.
“I’ve got a second wind to do it,” she said. “As my mother said (who lived to 94) ‘I’m going to make my last days, my best days.’ And that’s the same way I feel. I’m going to do my best work, I’m going to be my best person because at this point, I’m at the top of the chain. We’re the elders now.”
At 70, the Rev. Doris Green’s passion lies in helping people reenter society after incarceration. Her decades-old organization, Men & Women in Prison Ministries, offers assistance in a variety of crucial areas, including health services (specifically HIV and hepatitis C screenings), GED completion and acquiring a valid state ID.
“Sometimes they come here with nothing, depending on how long they were locked up. They come through here and they’re angry and mad, but we have the population and staff here that know how to work with that. Because of them, I’m who I am.”
As the former director of correctional health and community relations for the AIDS Foundation of Chicago, the Berwyn resident started her nonprofit as a member of the Evangelical Free Baptist Church. Once ordained, she took her ministry into state detention facilities; her work as a volunteer chaplain at Illinois penal institutions kickstarted the organization’s founding. Decades later, the agency serves thousands of clients and their families annually.
Green, also a published author, soon plans to make her daughter CEO of the organization so Green can start outreach work in West Africa. She said she understands that not everyone has the luxury of doing a job they love or feel called to — in her case, a job that doesn’t feel like “work” — but everyone has the ability to do something that benefits their well-being, which in turn can benefit others.
“Everyone is passionate about something. Doesn’t matter what it is, get into it and stick with it and learn,” she said. “God gives us all the years that he wants us to have, but I want to be doing something in those years. I’m freer now that I was at 35, 40, 50. Find out what it is that you like to do, and do it.”
Darcel Rockett
