This week's Patch Portraits series also features a rocker who builds a home for budding musicians in Wilmette and a women honoring Polish culture in Des Plaines. "I lived in Morton Grove for a long period of time and I couldn't find any nicer restaurants in the neighborhood," said Mahesh Sharma as he sat at a table in his new restaurant, Tava. The Indian restaurant, at 7172 Dempster St., opened in September. He said that a lack of finer dining options in Morton Grove was a major reason Sharma chose to open the type of restaurant he did. Earlier: Check out the entire Patch Portraits archive. …

This week's Patch Portraits also features a Deerfield vet who's willing to go door to door and a Skokie mosque leader who's building a community. For many, telling someone of a life threatening illness is a very personal matter. Coach Tyler Jones, head basketball coach at Concordia University Chicago in River Forest, knew the disclosure of his having prostate cancer to his team would be difficult, but when he was approached by ESPN to do a feature on it he did not hesitate a moment. "I'm all for the exposure," said Jones. "I want people to know you can get better from this and that early …

This week's Patch Portraits also feature Northbrook's community rabbi and Highland Park's art activist. When moving back to Evanston several years ago, Erin Marcus wanted a chance to spend time with dogs without having own one. Marcus found a happy medium volunteering with C.A.R.E. at the Evanston Animal Shelter. At the time Marcus owned an insurance brokerage company that required extensive traveling—getting a dog was not a possibility. In turn, giving up her Monday nights to help orphaned dogs find homes seemed like a good way to get in some dog time. Over the years, Marcus' roles with C.A.…

This week's Patch Portraits also feature Highland Park's art activist and Evanston's C.A.R.E.-giver. "For some reason people notice I'm a rabbi," joked Rabbi Meir Mosowitz, director of Lubavitch Chabad of Northbrook, which his father founded about a decade ago.   "I could be standing in line in the supermarket and they'll ask me a question and that's a good thing because if people are asking questions that means they're engaged, that means there is something on their mind." Earlier: Check out the entire Patch Portrait archives. As director of the center and as a rabbi, Moscowitz's job is …

This week's Patch Portraits also features Glenview's local food guru and Winnetka's sporting social entrepreneur. Ralph Frese has collected numerous awards and honors in his long career, but the best may be being known as "Mr. Canoe." The 85-year-old Niles resident has run Chicagoland Canoe Base in Portage Park, a city neighborhood, for more than 50 years. The shop inhabits the same building where Frese worked with his father as a blacksmith for many years, before devoting the shop fully to his passion for canoeing and kayaking. Earlier: Check out all of the Patch Portrait archives. Frese has…

This week's Patch Portraits also highlight two couples: one Wilmette couple closing their grocery's doors after 54 years, and one Evanston couple opening their home to adventure in Argentina. For Elizabeth McGuire, or "Miss Libby" as her students call her, dancing is about more than movement. "Dancing, any artform, can open up your innerself to expressions you never knew you might have," she said. Earlier: Check out all the Patch Portrait archives. In 1989, McGuire and her sister, Ellen Ecker, took over Galina Dance Studio in Des Plaines from Madame Galina, the original owner who had …

This week's Patch Portraits also feature Deerfield's nearby Wright-inspired home and Skokie's 'Golden Gloves' boxer. From the basement of First United Church of Oak Park, in a small office that was once a closet, a handful of people provide food for thousands each year. Kathy Russell, executive director of the Oak Park River Forest Food Pantry, and Michele Zurakowski, operations manager, work with several full-time staff and a sizable group of volunteers. Earlier: Check out all the Patch Portrait archives. "We're really two sides of the same coin," said Zurakowski, about longtime friend and …

This week's Patch Portrait also features Northbrook's historian and Wilmette's barber family. Cooking classes, improv, language club, knitting and video games are just some of the methods Morton Grove Public Library's Young Adult Services Librarian Jill Wehrheim uses to encourage more teens to spend time at the building. "It's easy to lose them because they don't think of the library as a place to hang out," stated Wehrheim as she led two teen girls in a knitting class. Earlier: Check out all the Patch Portrait archives. Wehrheim got her Masters in Library Sciences at the University of Iowa, …

This week's Patch Portraits also feature a Glenview woman who changed careers to change kids' lives and a Glencoe police cop who saves birds. Dena Mendes was not always as health conscious as she is today. But a battle with spastic colon colitis at the age of 17 led her to discover a different way of life. "When anybody has any kind of physical manifestation of anything, whether it's colon, allergies, acne...there's a reason, because whatever they're putting in, that's what they're getting out," said Mendes, who has developed a holistic approach towards hers and other peoples' health. She's …

This week's Patch Portraits also feature Evanston's hot dog stand entrepreneur and Highland Park's shoppers. Over the month of July, as storms ravaged through Cook County, the City of Des Plaines was hit particularly hard, as residents faced property destruction, flooding, and loss of power for up to six days at a time. (Earlier: Check out the entire Patch Portrait Series archives.) Here Des Plaines Mayor Martin Moylan talks about the destruction, thanks public works and emergency service providers for their prompt responses and brings up the possibility of the city implementing a new rebate …

This week's Patch Portrait series also features a Skokie shortstop pursuing his big league dreams. By now you may have heard of Max and his unique trick. After rescuing the Labrador from Riverwood’s animal shelter Orphans of the Storm, Max’s owner Keith Sanderson decided to teach his pup more than the normal game of fetch. Every morning the duo hit Deerfield’s streets looking for trash to pick up. Max spots things like bottles and cans, retrieves them and brings them to Sanderson to be recycled. Check out archives of the entire Patch Portrait series. Patch first wrote about Max’s green habits…

This week's Patch Portrait series also features Wilmette's piano man and Northbrook's original state champ football coach. Violet Sego has been in the restaurant business for 40 years. After learning the ways of the kitchen under master European chefs, she left her home of Croatia to visit the United States, and she never left. “I just came to visit," explained Sego. "I wanted to explore the world, I was pretty young, and I just stayed." After working here for only a couple years she ventured to open a fine dining restaurant in Park Ridge that she ended up running for the next 20 years. With …

This week's series of Patch Portraits also include a benevolent banker from Glenview and Niles' "Uncle Pete." Fire Chief Alan Berkowsky knows a thing or two about what it means to be a firefighter. After serving in Evanston for nearly three decades, he became Winentka's fire chief in April. You can read that story on Patch here. Throughout this week, the station's firefighters use totaled cars to practice rescue protocol after car crashes. Check out the photo gallery here. Ever wonder what it means to be a firefighter, wearing 20 pounds of protective gear on a hot July day, and practicing …

This week's series of Patch Portraits also include a benevolent banker from Glenview and Winnetka's fire chief. For years, children have called him “Uncle Pete.” They know him as the man who collects sack lunches, clothes and furniture and drives them to low-income neighborhoods to distribute to homeless and needy people. At age 89, Peter Zonsius has become a local legend for his charity in driving to Chicago's rough neighborhoods to deliver food, clothes, furniture and hope. Kids who attend St. John Brebeuf School in Niles, where he worked as custodian for 26 years before retiring, are used …

This week's series of Patch Portraits also features the Winnetka fire chief and Niles' "Uncle Pete." Executive VP at Glenview State Bank and an involved Glenview resident, David Kreiman's community roots run deep. "It's a different beast," said Glenview State Bank Executive Vice President and involved community member David Kreiman, of the bank he has worked at for almost 20 years.   As Executive Vice President, Kreiman mostly oversees different aspects of the customer service side of the business, focusing on how the bank can generally better serve its clients. But Kreiman sees his and the …

This week's Patch Portraits feature a Skokie Scout organizing a 5k to earn his Eagle Scout status, and a Deerfield chef cooking up community as he returns to his hometown. When you watch Revolution MacInnes walking through the streets of Oak Park, you get the feeling you’re seeing, if nothing else, someone different. He has the hulking frame and wardrobe of a pro wrestler, with the gray-white tendrils and big bushy salt-and-pepper goatee to match. Adorned with a scarf around his neck and a kerchief around his wrist, there’s a hint of aging Lothario, too. And then there’s the searching eyes of…

This week's Patch Portraits also features Wilmette's oldest graveyard. When Jann Greenberg’s son was 11, he struggled with making the transition to junior high school. Specifically, he didn’t want to get out of bed and go at all. Sitting in a meeting with special education service providers from Northbrook’s School District 27, Greenberg was at a loss. But then-Director of Special Education Programs Cory Hehn had an idea: Greenberg’s son needed a home-school connection. What if someone called him each morning to encourage him to go? Hehn offered to be the one, promising she would call him …

This week's Patch Portraits also features a Northbrook educator's farewell. Dozens of area residents braved the gloomy weather Saturday morning to learn a bit about the people buried in St. Joseph Cemetery. The cemetery was built in 1843 and is the third oldest Catholic cemetery in the Chicago area. The Wilmette Historical Museum has spent the better part of the last year researching those laid to rest in the cemetery, many of whom were instrumental in the early days of Grosse Point, which would later become part of Wilmette.  The event Saturday was the culmination of the last year's efforts…

This week's Patch Portraits also features a Glenview wine expert and a Winnetkan au pair. Ron Lundin loves his job. Just ask him, or maybe his sister, brother, wife, sons or daughter. They've all worked at Lin-Mar Motors, an automotive service shop in Morton Grove. Lundin purchased the business from his father who opened the service shop more than 50 years ago.* In less than a month, Lin-Mar Motors, currently on Lehigh Avenue, will scoot north one block to a larger site at 5940 Oakton Street.* It signals an important moment in the history of the family business, said Lundin, who hopes that …

This week's Patch Portraits also features a Wilmette mother who's turned her experience in stand-up comedy, MTV and SNL into a stage of her own. Don Nilles, who joined the Army at the age of 17, served in the 101st Airborne Division unit during the Vietnam War. He would later join the Special Forces and become a Green Beret. Almost four decades later, Adrian Bucur, now 28, becomes an officer in the United States Army, also serving in the 101st Airborne Division. During a ceremony honoring Bucur's accomplishment on becoming an officer, he asked Nilles to give him his first salute. The two …