{"id":534866,"date":"2010-04-19T23:09:29","date_gmt":"2010-04-20T03:09:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/chicagopressrelease.com\/press-releases\/children%e2%80%99s-center-founder-makris-dies"},"modified":"2010-04-22T22:58:25","modified_gmt":"2010-04-23T02:58:25","slug":"children%e2%80%99s-center-founder-makris-dies","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/534866","title":{"rendered":"Children\u2019s Center founder Makris dies"},"content":{"rendered":"

From its basement beginnings, the Children\u2019s Center of Cicero and Berwyn has evolved into a network offering support and aid to area families.<\/p>\n

Patricia Makris, founder and executive director of the center, died today as the result of cancer.<\/p>\n

Ron Kiefer, a member and past president of the center\u2019s Board of Directors, has known Makris since the 1960s.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was the one who got the community together and was behind getting this started,\u201d he said.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Makris opened the Children\u2019s Center in 1978 in a church basement. Now, the nonprofit has seven locations in both Cicero and Berwyn and provides educational programming, offers parenting resources and support to help improve children\u2019s home lives.<\/p>\n

An interim executive director had been appointed to the center while Makris \u2014 a former resident of Berwyn \u2014 received rehabilitation for cancer.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had hoped that she would be back,\u201d said Kiefer.\u00a0<\/p>\n

When Kiefer was principal at Burnham School in Cicero, he would hear his teachers remark about how they could tell if a child had gone through the Children\u2019s Center.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe opportunities that the center provides for kids really does make a difference in their education,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

The center\u2019s interim director, Vickie Piet, said about 1,500 children and families participate in the center\u2019s programs and services on an annual basis.<\/p>\n

Site director Lurlean Chodora said Makris tried to remain involved with the center by working from home.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut it was difficult when she was trying to rehabilitate herself to get well,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Chodora knew Makris as a woman concerned for the education of all the children in the community, not just those who attended the Children\u2019s center.<\/p>\n

Giving an example of how involved Makris was with the Children\u2019s Center, Chodora said children who returned to the center for continued help would remember Makris, even as they got older. And Makris was always willing to listen or help those children, Chodora said.<\/p>\n

Both Piet and Chodora were friends with Makris.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was a remarkable woman. <\/span>No one will ever be able to fill her shoes.\u201d said Piet.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe had some pretty big shoes to fill,\u201d said Chodora.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Read the original article from MySuburbanLife.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Distributed via Chicago Press Release Services<\/a><\/p>\n

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From its basement beginnings, the Children\u2019s Center of Cicero and Berwyn has evolved into a network offering support and aid to area families. Patricia Makris, founder and executive director of the center, died today as the result of cancer. Ron Kiefer, a member and past president of the center\u2019s Board of Directors, has known Makris […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-534866","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534866","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534866"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534866\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534866"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534866"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534866"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}