Friend­ship Senior Options Foun­da­tion Ded­i­cates New But­ter­fly Garden

Friend­ship Senior Options Foun­da­tion hon­ored the late Herb Dem­mel last week as they ded­i­cat­ed their new But­ter­fly Gar­den at Friend­ship Vil­lage Schaum­burg in his mem­o­ry. Dem­mel, a long­time and much-beloved res­i­dent of the senior liv­ing com­mu­ni­ty was a known vol­un­teer, con­ser­va­tion­ist, land stew­ard, and more. Demmel’s wish for the But­ter­fly Gar­den was ful­filled by a gift from his fam­i­ly to the Foun­da­tion after his death this spring. The But­ter­fly Gar­den is in the community’s Secret Garden.

Over the sev­en­teen years that he lived at Friend­ship Vil­lage, Dem­mel gave gen­er­ous­ly of his time as a very active vol­un­teer. Dur­ing an inter­view in 2016, Dem­mel said that hav­ing worked pro­fes­sion­al­ly dur­ing evening hours for many years, he had deter­mined that he had free time dur­ing day­light hours to vol­un­teer. ​“It gave me a way to meet a lot of peo­ple and be out­doors, which I like, he said. Dem­mel was respon­si­ble for the instal­la­tion and much of the main­te­nance of Friend­ship Village’s koi ponds. He worked exten­sive­ly in Friend­ship Woods, adja­cent to Friend­ship Vil­lage. There, he cleared weeds and non-native trees and plants, plant­ed wild­flow­ers, and gave nature walk lec­tures to res­i­dents and asso­ciates. Dem­mel also planned and fund­ed the clear­ing of the woods at the entrance­way to Friend­ship Vil­lage. He was also a vol­un­teer at the Kane Coun­ty For­est Pre­serve. Dem­mel received a cer­tifi­cate of appre­ci­a­tion from Friend­ship Village’s Land Stew­ard­ship Com­mit­tee and was the 2017 Schaum­burg Vol­un­teer of the Year.

Dur­ing the ded­i­ca­tion event for the gar­den last week, a sign was installed, read­ing ​“The but­ter­fly gar­den is a part­ing gift from a long­time friend and res­i­dent Herb Dem­mel; an advo­cate and gen­er­ous sup­port­er of land stew­ard­ship at Friend­ship Vil­lage, ded­i­cat­ed to the great care of the wood­ed areas of our prop­er­ty and pre­serv­ing nature for all res­i­dents to enjoy.”

“We are always so grate­ful for the gen­eros­i­ty of donors to the Foun­da­tion, which sup­ports seniors and those who serve them,” said Karen Kay, direc­tor of Friend­ship Senior Options Foun­da­tion. ​“This gift from the Dem­mel fam­i­ly will con­tin­ue to pos­i­tive­ly impact the lives of res­i­dents at Friend­ship Vil­lage through the beau­ti­ful But­ter­fly Gar­den, while also serv­ing as a love­ly memo­r­i­al to Herb.”

Click here to read the sto­ry as it appears in the Dai­ly Herald.