In celebration of this month’s “Thankful” theme, we feature five women with ties to the North Shore who are transforming gratitude into action through education, advocacy, philanthropy and service.
LAURA ADAMS | iCARE4 Adoptive And Foster Families | icare4aaff.org
As a former educator and mother by both birth and adoption, Lake Forest resident Laura Adams experienced firsthand the gap between families and schools when children are touched by adoption, foster care, kinship care or guardianship. During her children’s teenage years, Adams felt her family and its educators were “speaking two completely different languages” about attachment and developmental trauma.
The contrast became clear after her family found a school experienced in supporting adoptive and foster families. Its educators understood their needs, changing the outcome for the entire family.
She founded the nonprofit iCARE4 Adoptive And Foster Families to bridge that divide. Its Connected We Thrive training, Beyond the Family Tree™ modules and iCARE4 Schools Connection Kits™ provide practical, often bilingual tools for creating inclusive assignments, regulation-ready classrooms and stronger caregiver partnerships. That can mean replacing a traditional family-tree assignment with an inclusive alternative or helping a teacher recognize a child’s extreme reaction as survival mode rather than defiance. Participating schools can earn the Adoption & Foster Friendly Schools™ Designation, signaling to families that they will be understood and supported.
iCARE has distributed more than 6,500 kits, trained more than 800 educators, school staff members and care professionals and enrolled 37 Illinois schools, with a goal of reaching 200 by year’s end. Donations and grants help keep the programs accessible.
Adams’ advocacy also contributed to the passage of Public Act 104-0612, which explicitly includes adoptive, foster, kinship and guardianship families within Illinois’ trauma-informed education framework.
“It signals to families that their kids aren’t an afterthought,” Adams says. “They are seen, understood and supported.” The Illinois Association of School Social Workers recently named Adams its 2026 Citizen of the Year, honoring her dedication to students, families and the school social work profession.
ANN MARIE MATHIS | KEEPING FAMILIES COVERED | keepingfamiliescovered.org
When Ann Marie Mathis founded Keeping Families Covered in 2010, the mother of seven operated from her basement with a conviction that no child should go without basic necessities. Sixteen years later, that vision has become a regional movement serving more than 32,000 families and distributing over 2 million essential hygiene products annually across Lake, McHenry and Kane counties.
The need is widespread but often hidden. One in two families with young children struggles to afford enough diapers, Mathis notes, while safety-net programs do not cover them. Period supplies and adult incontinence products create similar barriers. Without those essentials, a child may miss daycare, a parent may miss work, a student may stay home from school or an older adult may become isolated.
“Behind every statistic is a family,” Mathis says. “A parent doing everything they can. A caregiver stretching every dollar. An individual making choices no one should have to make.”
Keeping Families Covered has now distributed more than 15 million hygiene products through three warehouses, more than 50 agency partners and a mobile pantry that visits nine locations each month. Because the organization purchases 90% of the diapers and half of the period supplies it distributes, monetary gifts, product drives and volunteers remain essential.
Partnerships also help the organization reach families facing additional barriers. An expanded collaboration with Northern Illinois Food Bank uses its My Pantry Express ordering system and DoorDash delivery to provide hygiene products alongside food. The model has become especially valuable for families concerned about transportation and safety amid increased immigration enforcement activity.
For Mathis, the work is ultimately about more than products. “It’s about dignity, health and supporting families during vulnerable moments,” she says. “Sometimes dignity comes with someone simply saying, ‘We can help.’”
SARA GUDERYAHN | WIRTZ CORPORATION | wirtzcorp.com
Sara Guderyahn may be a lifelong Illinoisan, but her sense of civic purpose took shape in Washington, D.C. After college, she spent more than a decade working alongside social entrepreneurs who brought community solutions into the policy arena. On Thursday mornings, she helped Sens. Dick Durbin and Barack Obama prepare for constituent breakfasts open to any Illinois resident.
One lesson stayed with her. Patt Souders, a chief of staff, told her that when someone is in a position to help, that responsibility extends not simply to a state or community, but to every constituent.
That idea shaped Guderyahn’s career. After returning to Chicago in 2013, she spent nearly seven years as founding executive director of Education Pioneers, a national nonprofit that brings talent into the education sector. Viewing Chicago through the experiences of young people and schools gave her a deeper understanding of the city.
She later joined the Chicago Blackhawks to build a broader social-impact strategy and philanthropic platform. The team doubled its community impact as it sought to give back to those who had supported it for nearly a century. Her work included efforts connected to the 1901 Project around the United Center and engagement with Indigenous communities, West Side neighborhoods and young people eager to play hockey.
Now vice president of public affairs and philanthropy at Wirtz Corporation, Guderyahn considers that responsibility across the family’s businesses and charitable efforts. Her selection for Leadership Greater Chicago’s 2026 Daniel Burnham Fellowship will deepen that work alongside other senior civic leaders.
Her message is that civic engagement belongs to everyone. “The biggest misconception is that it’s for someone else, someone who’s retired at an executive level,” she says. “But it really can be for everyone.”
NICOLE A. ALLEN | JENNER & BLOCK | lgcchicago.org
For Nicole A. Allen, professional expertise and civic responsibility naturally reinforce each other. A partner in Jenner & Block’s energy group, Allen has spent 18 years with the firm and focuses on energy litigation. Her work keeps her close to questions surrounding infrastructure, affordability and the ways business decisions affect communities.
Becoming a mother gave those questions a longer horizon. “I certainly think about generationally,” says Allen, a Michigan native who has lived in Winnetka for five years. “I have a longer-term view about what it means to live in the city, what it means to be part of the community and how the things we’re doing impact future generations.”
Through her firm’s managing partner, Allen met leaders at Lincoln Park Zoo and learned the institution had no attorney on staff. After living near the zoo for 13 years and regularly taking her young daughter there, she saw a meaningful opportunity to give back to a free community resource. Allen stepped in as general counsel and began providing legal work on a pro bono basis. Soon, colleagues joined her.
The role allowed Allen to unite her legal skills with her interest in civic service, helping an institution that welcomes families from across Chicago and beyond. It also reinforced her belief that communities share more than headlines sometimes suggest.
Allen will build on that work as a member of Leadership Greater Chicago’s 2027 class of Signature Fellows. Alongside 42 other professionals, she will explore the city’s neighborhoods, people and most pressing issues.
“We’re always quick to focus on differences,” Allen says, “but I think there’s a lot of commonality as well.” Those shared experiences matter, she adds, because working together is the only way communities can confront the major challenges affecting everyone.
NICKI SUTHERLAND | GRATITUDE GENERATION | GratitudeGeneration.org
The best evidence of Gratitude Generation’s impact may have appeared in a child’s playroom. After attending Caring Kiddos, a program for children ages 3 to 5, a young girl began reenacting it at home. When her mother asked what she was playing, she answered, “Gratitude Generation.”
For founder and Executive Director Nicki Sutherland, the moment captured the nonprofit’s purpose: making service a natural part of family life. What began with a Facebook post nine years ago has grown into a network connecting thousands of North Shore residents with hundreds of local nonprofits through more than 25 signature programs for ages 3 and older.
The invitation is intentionally simple. “Trade an hour of screen time for an hour of service,” Sutherland says. “You’re going to feel better. You’re going to get the gratitude glow.”
Programs also introduce participants to needs they might not otherwise see. Through Valentines for Veterans, volunteers connect with those who served. For Deck the Dorms, they pack laundry baskets with essentials for scholarship students whose families cannot afford the costs of setting up a college room.
The former high school English teacher has been equally inspired by small organizations doing significant work, including a food pantry run from a garage that supports 70 families each week. “We can all make a difference in our little corner of the world,” she says. “If more people thought like that, I think it would be a lot better place.”
Sutherland carries the mission home. Her oldest son serves on Gratitude Generation’s teen board, and service projects regularly become family projects. “It’s not just a mission,” she says. “It’s something that you carry home with you.”
Its programs make volunteering accessible to families seeking a practical place to begin. Small acts can build momentum. To volunteer, visit GratitudeGeneration.org. The organization’s pickleball tournament returns March 6.