A few days into a new year, faith in our fellow men and women is renewed.
A “good news” story is one we can appreciate, especially after a 2025 rife with meanspirited and shameless actions, some coming from our own “we the people” government.
It came in the form of an outpouring of help for families in Zion and Lake Villa who lost everything in holiday fires.
Friends and neighbors coming to the aid of the family of John and Leandra Hernandez, whose two-story home burned extensively on Christmas Eve, is but one “good news” story taking place in early 2026. The family was lucky to get out alive, with only the clothes on their backs.
They lost everything, including gifts from Santa Claus, hours before Christmas. Just over a year before the Hernandez blaze, a structure fire on Enoch Avenue in the city killed three members of a Zion family.
If you’ve never been a fire victim, it’s not something to put on a bucket list. It’s a terrifying experience, one which haunts forever those who have seen flames engulf their usually safe brick-and-mortar nests and possessions. Then come months of waiting for insurance checks, rebuilding, restocking and restoring memories.
Indeed, frightening is what happened to the extended family of eight, which includes four kids. Firefighters from six Lake County departments responded to the early evening blaze at the residence in the 3100 block of Ezekiel Avenue, near 31st Street. The wood-frame structure where the family had lived since 2019 burned rapidly, taking firefighters about three hours to extinguish the accidental blaze.
While a barren Christmas was expected, the kindness of strangers began, according to a front-page News-Sun story last week by Tess Kenny. Area Red Cross folks stepped in to get shelter for the family at the Inn on Sheridan in the city’s downtown, where they celebrated Christmas.
A next-door neighbor let them wait inside his house until they had lodging confirmed. Clothes, toiletries, food and gift cards found their way to the family, Kenny reported.
Then, a GoFundMe page was set up, so far raising about $13,000. Mom Leandra told Kenny, “People are still donating, sharing our GoFundMe, sending meals.”
That’s not all. She told Kenny others were asking: “What else can we do? What else do you need?”
Obviously, a lot. They’ll be restarting their home from scratch, but with a Christmas Eve lifesaving miracle under their belts, they’ve got each other. Possessions can always be replaced.
In Lake Villa, the Tunde family of five is grappling with losing their rental home near Red Cedar Road and Pine Tree Drive to fire on New Year’s Eve. No one was injured in the blaze as personnel from more than six fire departments battled the fire, which turned the two-story building into an inferno.
A GoFundMe page also was set up for the family, and as of Monday, had raised nearly $12,000. The home is uninhabitable.
And like many, they’ve found their neighbors and the greater Lake County community have caring spirits. That attention should make us all get that sense of good feeling.
Unlike the Hernandez and Tunde families, which face uncertain futures of rebuilding in 2026, members of Waukegan High School’s Class of 2025 have their futures well in hand, along with the reading futures of students across the 15 grade schools in District 60, according to a Steve Sadin front-page story last week. The class gift from those who graduated in May is “little free libraries” for elementary readers across the city’s schools.
Study after study has shown that over the past decade, American students’ reading abilities have nose-dived, along with reading habits. In 2023, a mere 14% of 13-year-olds read for fun almost every day, down from 27% a decade earlier.
Adult readership levels are no better. The most recent Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, from 2022, found fewer than half of Americans had read a single book in the previous year, with only 38% reading a novel or short story, while another study determined the number of Americans who engage in daily reading for pleasure dipped 3% annually from 2003 to 2023.
“We want to promote literacy,” class president Lamero Ceaser, now a freshman at Augustana College in Rock Island, told Sadin. “We wanted to give back to the community. Then we got the idea of the little free library.”
Class members raised $3,000 to establish their little libraries, which dot communities nationwide, and the Waukegan Public Library donated some 400 books curated by class members to the project. The finished products were delivered on Dec. 15.
The project gives a sense of what the younger generation of Waukeganites sees for the future of the community. Something they can take pride in accomplishing and certainly another “good news” story often overlooked.
Charles Selle is a former News-Sun reporter, political editor and editor.
sellenews@gmail.com
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