Assistance for families is familiar territory for pastor, attorney

RANTOUL – Elaine Gehrmann served as a pastor for 10 years. Also an attorney, she has directed her focus toward providing legal assistance to the poor. For Gehrmann, it's all about helping people.

As such, she jumped at the chance to become executive director of Generations of Hope, a nonprofit Rantoul-based organization that strives to help families. Hope works to develop caring relationships for adoptive families of foster children while offering safety and purpose in the lives of Hope's senior citizens who serve as surrogate grandparents to the youngsters.

Gehrmann, 46, succeeds Carolyn Casteel, who had been named Hope interim director three years ago after founder Brenda Eheart stepped down to establish the Generations of Hope Development Corp., which is working to replicate the Hope model in other communities.

Generations of Hope operates an intergenerational community called Hope Meadows, located on the former Chanute Air Force Base.

"Hope Meadows is terrific in that the community members are a great help to each other," Gehrmann said in her first week on the job last week. "The staff's job is really to help the Hope community help each other.

"This job feels like it can be so constructive and help children who really need a supportive community. This feels proactive and (makes) a difference when it really counts."

As executive director, she said her job is to supervise the day-to-day operations of Hope Meadows, whether assisting community interaction or enabling community members to best use their skills or managing the apartment complex that makes up Hope Meadows.

"The whole foster care placement toward adoption process involves a lot of documentation," Gehrmann said. "We also have to pay bills and do fundraising and manage all of that."

The new executive director said she is learning as she goes, and during that learning process she will gauge whether she will push for any changes.

"I'm thinking constantly how we might in the future do things differently, what we want to continue," Gehrmann said. "I like to make informed decisions, so I'm working on the informed part."

Gehrmann was officially welcomed into the Hope Meadows community at an open house Thursday.

"Everyone's been more helpful than I could imagine," she said. "They've been welcoming and opened their community to me."

Hope Meadows includes nine adoptive families with children and about 50 senior citizens.

"I'm really excited to be here because to me it feels like the ideal job.

"I feel like I have a lot of skills that I can put to use – to facilitate the incredible skills and compassion that exist here. The relationships that exist here are, I think, what most communities would want."

A native of Pittsburgh, Gehrmann and her husband live in Urbana with their two teenage children. Her husband, Axel, has been minister of the Unitarian Universalist Church of Urbana-Champaign for the last 14 years. She had been co-pastor of two Unitarian Universalist churches for five years each – first in Watertown, N.Y., and then in Urbana. Before that she was a family and individual counselor for three years.

She received a law degree at the University of Illinois and then worked as a staff attorney for Prairie State Legal Services and for the Champaign County public defender's office.

David Hopping, president of Generations of Hope, said Gehrmann possesses "a combination of experience and abilities that are a uniquely valuable match for the organization. She has keen analytical skills and an avid desire and ability to learn and address new challenges."

Gehrmann earned a bachelor's degree in sociology and anthropology from the University of Pittsburgh and a master's of divinity degree from the Starr King School for the Ministry in Berkeley, Calif. She earned a master's degree in educational policy studies at the UI, in addition to her law degree.

She is a member of the Urbana school board and is active in the American Civil Liberties Union and the NAACP.