Kevin Healy's philanthropic work on Chicago's South Side has earned him plenty of recognition. (Photo by Kristen Aguirre)
By Kristen Aguirre
People’s Gas has a mission statement that reads, “Provide Customers with the Best Value in Energy and Related Services.” While “related services” usually includes energy maintenance, checkups to a furnace or stove, employee Kevin Healy takes that mission statement to another level.
Healy has been working at People’s Gas for more than 25 years, and has earned the title as crew leader, the equivalent to a foreman. His days begin at 5 a.m. and are filled with working on damaged gas pipes throughout the city of Chicago.
While most of his colleagues are getting off work at 3:30 p.m. and heading home, Healy is headed to where his other job begins.
“Work is work, but this, this is my job,” Healy said of his three-year-old company, Kevin Healy & Associates, LLC.
Kevin Healy & Associates is an event-planning and fundraising consultation company. While it may be new to some in the business world, to many South Side Chicago residents, Healy’s name is anything but new.
For the past 20 years, Healy has been putting on benefits for local South Side families in need. Most of the families he helps have a sick child or parent and need help paying for medical bills. Some are police officers and firemen who have been hurt on the job.
“I started this to give people hope,” Healy said. “In this economy and with this healthcare situation, there is only so much insurance will cover, I just want to help a family out.”
Healy helped a family out with his first benefit in 1990. A friend of Healy’s, Brian Finnegan had a son, Tommy, born with cerebral palsy and mental retardation. To help provide the best medical attention and living situation for Tommy, Healy set up a three-on-three basketball tournament to raise money.
“This benefit was all about friendship and love, and that’s why for me it is the most memorable,” Healy said. “It will always come back to Tourney for [Tommy],” he said.
The Tourney for Tommy benefit has been held annually at St. Rita High School for 20 years. Since Tommy’s death in 2008, money raised from the benefit goes to The Tommy Finnegan Legacy Foundation to help other families that have special needs children.
While sitting on board of the Legacy Foundation and five others, Healy has also found time to form his own, The South Side Samaritan Foundation. This foundation will go to help South Side families and any children in need, which includes providing scholarships and trust funds.
After throwing his first benefit, Healy then organized more than 150 events over the next 20 years. But after years of fundraising for free, it wasn’t until recently in 2007 that Healy opened Kevin Healy & Associates and began charging.
“People weren’t paying it forward. I tried to do the best I could and something had to give,” Healy said. “People would utilize me to get what they needed to get and that’s it,” he said.
One requirement that Healy asks of when organizing a benefit is that people attend other benefits he is helping with.
“After I helped raise money for one family, I hoped that they would also help another,” Healy said.
While that wasn’t always the case and after a few uncooperative families, Healy decided to open Kevin Healy & Associates. However while other event planning and fundraising companies charge up to 35 percent plus expenses, Kevin Healy & Associates charges 10 percent and after all expenses for the benefit are paid.
“When we run a benefit we run it right, but the point is to help out a family not take their money,” Healy said.
That 10 percent Healy earns covers office expenses such as rent, accountants, insurance, and the rest goes into his foundations.
“People say go bigger get the bigger events, but that’s not for me,” he said.
“But for me [the] South Side has the best people, we may not be the richest, but we know what it’s about down here.”
Healy said his next step for Kevin Healy & Associates is to make it a 501-C3, a non-profit organization.
“If we become non profit we can help out more people and more families, and then they can continue to pay it forward,” Healy said. “I’m not becoming a millionaire, all my stuff in on the table and I want to help more families and more foundations.”
Healy looks back at everything he has done, all his “related services” as a crew leader and fundraiser,
“I look back at the 150 benefits, and there is a lot I gave up.” he said. “You try to live you life to be happy, and all I want to do is help people out. I have made some good friends along the way, so is it worth it? I hope so.”
