Darien Citizens of the Year Help Local Kids Achieve Dreams

The good deeds happen quietly: piano lessons for a student here, a musical instrument for a student there. Darien is more subtly beautiful each year for the pockets of trees planted in its parks, three or four at a time, in memory of loved ones lost. Young adults with disabilities experience the thrill of taking the stage with the aid of a grant to the La Grange Actors with Special Needs Theater Group.

Robert and Charleen Vuillaume are very humble about the difference they make through The Gift of Carl Foundation.

But if they hear of a need that meets their foundation’s mission, the couple is there to fill it.

The city of Darien recognized the Vuillaumes as the 2012 Citizens of the Year for their foundation’s work in Darien and beyond.

“In their quiet, unassuming ways, Rob and Char Vuillaume together have touched the lives of thousands in Darien,” the Citizen of the Year Committee wrote in its endorsement.

The Gift of Carl Foundation was established in 2005 in memory of the Vuillaume’s 16-year-old son, Carl, who drowned during a family vacation.

Whether it was playing the piano in gym during wrestling matches or performing on the school’s stage, Carl excelled in music and theater. He loved to read and write, Robert said, and began writing his own book as a teenager.

“They say ‘Only the good die young,’” Charleen Vuillaume said. “It’s so true. There was not a mean bone in his body. If he knew you, he was your friend.”

Every day the loss is still raw, she said. It’s hard to find words for how the couple was able to channel their grief into starting the foundation.

“Maybe it was a diversion for us, and we saw the good that came out of it,” she said. “And we continued to do it.”

Over the past six years the foundation has provided more than $100,000 in financial support to local students and youth programs.

The foundation’s reach in Darien and throughout the area is broad.

With the help of PM Music in Aurora, it has connected roughly 150 students in need with refurbished donated musical instruments. The foundation has paid for private music lessons for 20 band students, as well as piano lessons for 15 other local children.

Twenty students involved with theater at Hinsdale South have received a total of about $20,000 in scholarship money for college.

The annual Write-On Teen Literacy Festival at includes workshops, writing contests, a poetry slam and visits from bestselling authors such as Sharon Draper and Alex Finn, who wrote the recent Beauty and the Beast update, Beastly.

The Vuillaume’s support has had a profound impact on Darien’s Arbor Day events, coordinator Kathy Minardi said.

Each April, local school children gather in a different Darien park for the dedicating of newly planted memorial trees, funded by the foundation. The trees are planted in tribute to children or teens who have passed on, as well as adults who lived a life of service.

As part of the ceremony, students get a lesson in the role trees play in a healthy environment. They also release live butterflies they grow from chrysalis to adult.

“(The Vuillaumes) help us with every aspect of this event and offer their wisdom, their tireless energy and support,” Minardi said. “As if this isn't enough, their greatest gift is the empathy they share with each of the families we plant for because they know, first hand, what these families are going through.”

The Vuillaumes are quick to share credit for all they’ve done, including receiving the Citizens of the Year award.

“It’s more humbling than anything,” Robert Vuillaume said. “There are a lot of people in Darien doing what we do.”

Though their impact on the community has been deep, the Vuillaumes said when they first moved to Darien, they thought it would be an intermediate step.

But more than two decades later, the couple has turned down promotions and built an addition, all so they could stay in the town they’ve come to love.

“This became our roots,” Charleen said. “This is where we’re from.”

The Vuillaumes will be honored at the annual Citizens of the Year Dinner/Dance on March 24 at . Tickets are available at . For more info, call Mary at 630-353-8102 or visit The Gift of Carl Foundation's website.