Baran-Unland: Do you know Peggy Georgevitch?

Back in 2003, when I was still a freelance writer for The Herald-News, I was asked to write a story about a social worker extraordinaire who was being honored – again.

Her name was Peggy Georgevitch, and she’d spent her life helping at-risk youth. Georgevitch herself never had children.

The Illinois Association of School Social Workers named Georgevitch its Citizen of the Year in 1999. And then in 2003, Georgevitch was honored at a Silver Stars celebration when Education Service Network was celebrating its 25th year. Georgevitch was 67 at the time.

The Herald-News editor who assigned the Silver Stars story to me also gave me a green binder of background information on Georgevitch. The binder was filled with newspaper clippings and letters of recommendation, many of them laminated, detailing Georgevitch’s accomplishments.

I’m fairly certain this scrapbook of material belongs to Georgevitch. Except I don’t know how to find her.

I’ve moved five times since I wrote that story. I’ve transitioned from freelancer to staff, and that binder sat on my desk in The Herald-News office on Oneida Street until the office moved to Essington Road. Whenever I had a few spare moments, I’d search on social media or make a phone call, trying to find her.

It’s more than about time that Georgevitch is reunited with that binder.

What made Georgevitch an exceptional social worker? She had a tender heart for kids in need and a drive to change their situations.

In high school, Georgevitch volunteered for an orphanage. As an adult, she taught for the School Sisters of Notre Dame and “always seemed to get interested in the children I felt were not looked after,” she said in the 2003 story.

Georgevitch later taught at a little college in Wisconsin until that institution closed, and then she became a house parent at the Glenwood School for Boys. After that, she worked with residential children at Guardian Angel Home in Joliet. During her first week at Guardian Angel, some kids locked her in a freezer, she said in the story.

“But even those kids knew when someone cared about them,” Georgevitch said in the story.

At the time of the 2003 Herald-News story, Georgevitch had worked for ESN for 17 years and did her best to keep kids in school.

Georgevitch helped kids get school supplies or the necessary funds in order to play in the school band. She helped arrange transportation, clothing, shelter, medical care, the reconnection of phone service and information on obtaining Social Security cards.

And she deflected credit away from herself.

“When people work together, all kinds of beautiful things can happen,” she said in the story.

But not all issues were easily solved.

“Sometimes big things happen in families, like death or divorce. A grandparent may be ill and a parent may be up late taking care of that person and have difficulty getting the child to school,” Georgevitch said in the story. “If Dad has just left or Mom has just left, the last thing a child wants is to go to school.”

If you know Georgevitch, please have her contact me at 815-280-4122 or dunland@shawmedia.com.