Monthly Archives: October 2009

Fire Safety Week

This is Fire Safety Week.  Right on cue, my pre-school aged daughter came home talking about the fire drill at school.  She is not a fan of loud noises so became teary eyed as the story progressed.     To ease her fears we talked  about what to do in case of an emergency, practiced slithering along the floor and touching the doorknobs to see if they were hot.  It brought me back to when my family did this when we were younger.  I especially remember the year my brother, no stranger to the ER at age five, was in kindergarten.  After we talked about how we’d go out the back door he wandered off, his attention diverted by who knows what.   Well, he actually went out his escape route—right out his second floor bedroom window!  He was unharmed, which he credited with the pillow he threw out first–to break his fall.    When I spoke to him today and reminded him about it, almost thirty years later, he still maintains he planned it that way-the pillow was perfectly placed so he wouldn’t get hurt.   A little planning is a good thing it seems…

The first official blog post for the Chicago area team

Here it is- the first official blog post for the Chicago area team. 

My name is Angela Weepie and I cover Hyde Park, the South and West Loops, and Bucktown and Wicker Park.  I am writing the first blog post, but I am not going to be the only one blogging.  This blog is a collaborative effort, so you’ll be hearing from each of the Chicagoland counselors.  In my first blog post I am not going to talk about me, rather, I’d like you to join me in celebrating service awards for counselors who have been part of the Au Pair in America family for 15 years. 

We salute Ginny Costigan, Kathy Kressner, Pam Mayer-Caes, Sandee Plescia, Kathy Simon, and Iris Sommer, for their service and dedication to the Au Pair in America program.   We have a fantastic group of counselors here in Chicago who have set the stage for excellence in customer service.  These ladies remember hand delivering au pair applications, and sitting in their cars in the mall parking lot reading applications and swapping them with each other to find the best fit for both the au pairs and host families.  Technology has brought us to our SHARE system where families have the entire pool of au pair applicants at their fingertips 24 hours a day. From then until now, we continue to bring the world together.  Congratulations ladies, I am honored to work with each and every one of you.

The Connecticut office often calls community counselors the face of the organization, well now you get to hear our voices…