Best of Hoffman

Tom rescued the Little Hoopers basketball program from collapse, growing it from 20 to over 60 participants. He developed a new league structure with Athletic Manager Rich Dahome that balances skill development with fun.

Stephanie founded the Twirling Twisters Baton Corps in 1981, leading it to state championships in 2019 and 2024. The team will compete at the World Baton Twirling Championship in Turin, Italy next year.

Carl played HEParks baseball from 2014 through Colt level while assisting Pony coaching staff for three years. He now studies Computer Engineering at Valparaiso University’s Christ Honors College.

High school basketball players Ian Miletic and Derek Clark volunteered to coach an HEParks youth team mid-season when it lost its coach. Derek earned a full-ride scholarship to Elgin Community College; Ian is evaluating college offers.

Ron served HEParks for 14 years as Commissioner, Community Representative, and Foundation Trustee. In 2023, he brought in five foursomes for the annual golf outing, representing over 20 percent of participants.

MaryEllen has volunteered consistently for over two years, applying temporary tattoos at Northwest Fourth Fest, helping with Easter Egg hunts, and assisting at the Community Garage Sale check-in table.

Isha served as the first Student Liaison to the Administration & Finance Committee, attending nearly every meeting and sharing feedback on District policies. She graduated from Hoffman Estates High School and now attends the University of Illinois.

Oluremi volunteers twice weekly at the Triphahn Center Front Desk since May 2022. She and her family also volunteer at events including Winter Wonderland, park clean-ups, and public skate.

Billy has been a hockey league participant with the Park District for several years, and is also a part-time employee, helping out with hockey lessons and birthday parties. But what really impresses us about Billy is his willingness to volunteer for multiple events, in addition to his normal responsibilities.

As stated by a staff member, “Billy is a fine young man who’s contributions do not go unnoticed. He volunteers countless hours to make sure he is always putting a smile on children’s faces.”

Billy is a wonderful volunteer who is known to attend Park District community-wide events dressed as Mickey Mouse (he has the voice down perfectly!), the Easter Bunny and even Santa Claus. The children light up when they see him. The Park District is lucky to have a young man making such a positive impact on the children and families in our community.

Natalie is the co-chair of the Village of Hoffman Estates’ Sustainability Committee, and the Deputy Director of the Illinois Monarch Project. She first reached out to our staff looking for a good place to release the monarch butterflies that she had been breeding and hatching at home.

After this initial meeting, Natalie helped coordinate the BioBlitz event at Black Bear Park. BioBlitz is a nationwide parks challenge to locate and photograph pollinators, like bees and butterflies, as well as flowers, plants and other locally found wildlife and plants. During this event, Natalie spent a considerable amount of time teaching kids about the monarch, milkweed and how the monarch moves and works within the ecosystem.

Since the event, Natalie has reached out to the Park District for help in writing a grant proposal, “Micro Plastics in the Great Lakes”, looking to include educational components within the parks for children.

IBill and Linda have been ambassadors for the game of pickleball for many years, and have been instrumental in growing the game in Hoffman Estates. Bill and Linda initially approached the Park District about providing permanent pickleball courts at High Point Park (now Fabbrini Park) in 2012, as pickleball was beginning to gain in popularity. Since then, HEParks have provided courts at Charlemagne Park, South Ridge Park, and Cannon Crossings Park.

Fabbrini Park has become a destination for Pickleball tournaments, as HEParks has hosted both professional and amateur tournaments, including the recent Six County Senior Games pickleball events, for which Bill and Linda spent many hours helping to recruit, organize and plan.

The Grabas also recently donated $1,000 to HEParks for the purchase of a storage bin to be placed at the Fabbrini Park courts, to store equipment for the District’s pickleball leagues. Thanks to Bill and Linda’s efforts, pickleball programs at HEParks have grown to include both indoor and outdoor leagues for both seniors and all ages, open play time and private lessons.

Hoffman Estates Park District would like to recognize the U10 Wolverines hockey team as the Best of Hoffman for the 1st Quarter 2022. The U10 Wolverines is a 13-member hockey team which plays in a co-ed division, but this team is made up of all girls, and they won their division in incredible fashion!

After not knowing if they would have enough girls to form a team, they were able to fill a roster with mostly younger girls and some playing up an age level. The regular season was filled with both wins and losses, but the Wolverines won all three of the tournaments they entered, and finished the season as the winners of the Squirt Division 3 Championship against the boys’ teams. It was exciting for the coaches to see so much improvement in all the players over the course of the season.

Chrissy has been a member of the Village of Hoffman Estates’ Sustainability Commission since 2019, and has been the co-chair of the Commission since 2020. She has a biology and environmental science background and is very active in conservation.

This past fall, Chrissy spoke with Matt Schiller, our Supervisor of Park Grounds, about the possibility of the Sustainability Commission partnering with the Park District to provide an educational element to the Seed Collection event.

After speaking with Matt, Chrissy created an informative, colorful and easy-to-understand infographic, explaining the benefits of seed collecting and natural shorelines. Chrissy feels that if the public is more aware of the need for seed collecting, followed by seed “bombing”, they will be more willing to participate and help to create healthy, less costly and sustainable parks, especially the areas surrounding the lakes and ponds.

The Sustainability Commission is now partnering with the Hoffman Estates Garden Club and Chrissy would like to continue partnering with the Hoffman Estates Park District to continue education and citizen involvement and resources for conservation and native landscapes, including some programming for children during the summer.

His idea for starting a Pub Trivia program here at the District stemmed from a trip to England ten years ago, where he experienced a trivia event for the first time. Upon returning to the States, he mentioned the idea to Rica Cuff, our former Senior Program Manager, and Dr. Hoover has been hosting Pub Trivia night ever since.

Dr. Hoover writes the questions himself, 20 questions plus three tiebreakers each month. He creates the questions from current events, as well as history books and publications, and he takes the time to try to verify each answer. Each month, the Pub Trivia night has between 17 and 48 people in attendance.

Dr. Hoover first joined the Park District as a fitness member back in 1986. Today he stays involved with the senior programming, and also enjoys playing golf, bowling with his wife, and traveling whenever he can.

We are so thankful for the time, dedication and passion that Dr. Hoover puts into the Pub Trivia nights. Each month, he makes it a fun, challenging and enjoyable evening for everyone in attendance!

Silvia and Alexandru Garbu, along with their two children, Laurentiu and Calin, have lived in the Hoffman Estates area for ten years. They are nature lovers, and truly enjoy using all of the parks in the area. Silvia stated “we are blessed, we have a good life, and we want to give back to our community that we care so much about and that offers us so many ways to enjoy nature.” Silvia and Alexandru would like to instill a sense of obligation in their children to participate, volunteer and give back to their community.

As part of the HEParks series of Spring Cleanup events, the Garbu family participated in the Victoria Park Cleanup. During the South Ridge Park Cleanup, Silvia mentioned the volunteer group was small but able to accomplish a full cleanup in a short time. The Garbu family also participated in the Spring Seed Bombing, as well as the Invasive Plant Removal.

Laurentiu is a 17-year-old high school senior, who also works as a lifeguard at the Seascape facility. Calin is nine and enjoys volunteering. The family is interested in participating in additional events in the future.

Katie attended Hoffman Estates High School, where she played basketball and softball. Her passion for sports and the Hoffman Estates community has followed her through the years. She is now heavily involved with the HEParks basketball program, plus her daughter participates in the District’s feeder basketball and in-house leagues through the basketball academy.

Throughout the duration of the pandemic, Katie has kept the girls’ basketball community engaged. She has promoted our camps and clinics to the players, helped create the Wednesday feeder drop-in program, and was head coach for both our 3/4/5-grade girls pod and the 6/7/8-grad girls pod.

Katie is the voice of girls hoops in the Hoffman Estates community and helped provide a great opportunity for all those that participated this season. Thank you, Katie, for your volunteer service and for making a positive impact on the District’s basketball program.

Congratulations on the undefeated season of 17-0 and winning the league title!

While the players have some outstanding statistics to showcase what a great year they had, the greatest thing the players learned from the season was how to respect the sport, their opponent, their teammates, and their coaches.  The team truly exemplifies the idea behind baseball being a team sport, and this is what the coaches are most proud of.   

The Park District was very proud to hear of the Hoffman Blue’s achievements.  The Park District congratulates the Hoffman Blue baseball team on a fantastic year and are presenting them with the November 2020 Best of Hoffman award.  Congratulations to Coach Marc, Coach Kevin, Coach Sway, Adrian, Jayden, Carl, Gavin, Kyle, Daniel, Jason, Ryker, Ivan, and Isaiah.

Hoffman Estates Park District would like to recognize Pauline Wieland as Best of Hoffman.

As a Hoffman Estates resident residing at Pine Park for approximately 36 years, Pauline has taken the initiative to establish an informal group of volunteers, she has deemed Neighbors for Conservation, to help clean-up invasive plants called buckthorns along the Pine Park creek line. 

She worked with Parks District staff to hold two Neighbors for Conservation events at Pine Park, one on September 26 and one on October 3, which allowed volunteers of all ages to help remove the invasive plants. 

With the bit of work completed on these two dates, the Neighbors for Conservation were able to complete about 50% of their goal which is to remove all of the buckthorns along the creek line.  Pauline is actively working with Parks District staff to arrange dates for November in hopes of completing the reminder of the removal of the buckthorns along the creek line.

Pauline has embraced her new personal motto of “do more and criticize less” in hopes of making a difference in the community and we are very appreciative.  Pauline, we would like to thank you for taking the initiative to help clean-up the invasive plants at Pine Park.

Hoffman Estates Park District would like to recognize Hap Wittkamp as Best of Hoffman.

With over thirteen years of service under his belt, black belt, if you will, our resident martial arts expert, Hap Wittkamp, has resigned from his volunteer position as a Community Representative for the Recreation Committee.  While we are sad to see him go and we will miss his presence at our Board and Committee Meetings, we are very grateful for his years of service.  

Hap has left a large footprint on the District.  In addition to his service as a Community Representative, Hap has been instrumental in the development and success of the senior/50+ program.  He and his wife, Jan, truly are the foundation of the program.  Even before the 50+ Club was developed, the pair led the district in the creation of an organized senior program – even touring and researching other senior centers to report back on how different agencies operate.  They speak on behalf of all the seniors and have the best interest of the seniors in mind when creating and enhancing programs.  Hap, we would like to thank you for making such a positive impact in our District! 

Jay and his family are members of the Wolfpack/Timberwolves hockey family. After hearing about the loss of one of the members of the hockey family, Jay felt he had to try to help in any way he could because, and I quote, “While our family didn’t know her or her family, the Wolfpack/Timberwolves is our family. We are all ‘hockey families’”. Essentially, we support one another.

In honor and memory of Faith Hoberg, a 12-year-old hockey player with the Wolf Pack club whose life was tragically taken in a car accident, Jay purchased and donated 50 jerseys to the hockey program. Faith’s entire Wolf Pack team was given a jersey, along with some of Faith’s family members. The remaining jerseys are being raffled off and the money collected from each raffle ticket is going into a fund established by a large Hoberg family donation to provide an annual hockey scholarship in Faith’s name. The jerseys will be awarded to the raffle ticket winners on February 8 at 3 pm. Faith’s team will be wearing their purple jerseys at the 4 pm game on this date.