Philanthropy is more than ball gowns and galas.
It’s finding a cause you believe in, something worth your time and money. Our philanthropists started with a problem: Why isn’t lung cancer research getting funded? How do we give kids a hands-on place to learn? How can underserved families in Lake County best be helped?
These were problems that kept them up at night. And each of these people decided to stop mulling and start doing. They have given deeply of themselves to improve our communities and the lives of others.
Their stories on these pages are just a snippet of the work they have done.
 | “Children are the messages we send to generations that we will never see,” says Dolores Kohl.Dolores Kohl twinkles as she explains the mission and accomplishments of the Dolores Kohl Education Foundation. Regionally, the initiatives include the Kohl Children’s Museum, the Kohl McCormick Early Childhood Teaching Awards and the Story Bus, a traveling pre-literacy skills development exhibit. It also includes many international arts and education programs.Read more |
| Dolores Kohl | |
 | A decade ago, the Kohl Children’s Museum occupied a retro-fitted bowling alley on Green Bay Road in Wilmette. Today, it’s located on an 8.8-acre parcel of land in Glenview and has been named one of the ten best children’s museums in the country by Parents magazine.Read more |
| Fritz and Tracy Souder, Donna Sims Wilson | |
 | Jill Feldman doesn’t look or act like the victim of a cruel irony. She lost both her parents and two grandparents to lung cancer before she was 28. Jill saw the stigma surrounding lung cancer (it’s associated so strongly with smoking that people often assume it’s preventable), so she became involved in LUNGevity in 2001. The organization had just lost four of its founders to lung cancer, before it could even have its first benefit.Read more |
| Jill Feldman | |
 | When three generations of a family unite in purpose, great things can happen. For the Duchossois family, who own a conglomeration of businesses based in Elmhurst, the desire to make a difference is embodied in their family’s foundation, which is headed by Kim Duchossois.Read more |
| Kim Duchossois | |
 | In 1974, Ellie Clarke’s 9-year-old daughter died of a brain tumor. In the wake of her daughter’s death, Clarke says her own life felt meaningless.“I thought about it a lot. What was I going to do? I wasn’t just going to sit around weeping all day,” remembers Clarke. So she began volunteering, first at Children’s Memorial Hospital, where her daughter had passed away, and then at various other organizations. Read more |
| Ellie Clarke | |
 | This is a love story: the story of a couple who fell in love with the beauty, the balance and the philosophy of a Chicago-based architect who died before either of them was born. Their enthusiasm became the catalyst for establishing The Benjamin Marshall Society.Read more |
| Jane Lepauw |
