RIVERDALE — Rain is spitting onto the windowpanes at Riverdale School, and Ed Chinick is feeling right at home.

A retired truck driver from Seattle, Chinick is no stranger to overcast skies and precipitation.

And he’s no stranger in Hannah Baker’s third- and fourth-grade classroom. As he shuffles in, children ask if his back is beginning to feel better. The children know that he hurt it lifting a heavy box, and they wonder whether their get-well cards made a difference.

Chinick thanks them for their get-well wishes. The children encircle him as he cracks open a book and begins to read.

“It shows the kids that adults are interested in what they are doing,” para-educator Alisha Cudaback whispers in the hallway about Chinick’s reading. Cudaback is just one of many Ed Chinick fans at Riverdale School.

Chinick is the 2006 Freedom Award winner for outstanding voluntarism in education.

He and his wife, Evelyn, retired to Riverdale in 1993, and he started his volunteer reading at the school after teacher Pat Neff asked, “Do you read?”

Since then, Chinick has become a fixture at the school, reading to children in grades three through five at least three days per week.

“You can go anywhere in the universe in your mind,” Chinick said.

He said that sometimes he gets carried away by the stories he reads. “I like to put characters in them.”

The rain continues outside as he reads to the third- and fourth-graders, then pauses for a question. At age 69, Chinick knows some history, so he likes to share a little perspective with the students.

One of the books he’s read, “Al Capone Does My Shirts,” is about school friends whose parents work on Alcatraz, where Capone and other famous mobsters were imprisoned during the Great Depression. The school friends cook up a plan in which they charge a nickel to classmates to have Capone and other notorious convicts wash their clothes in the prison laundry.

“With books like that, I have a lot of history, and I can share some of my own memories,” Chinick said.

In addition to reading at Riverdale School, Chinick’s voluntarism revolves around the Knights of Columbus and St. James Catholic Church. Chinick helps the Knights’ Tootsie Roll drive and at Lenten fish fries. He sings in the Kearney Knights of Columbus Men’s Choir.

He and Evelyn are greeters at Mass at St. James, and Evelyn is a member of the Catholic Daughters of America. He also is Riverdale’s mayor.

Fifth-grader Zach Yochum said Chinick really shows students that he cares. “He goes to all of our school plays, and he comes to activities such as Rural Activity Day and Multicultural Day. He is a great support to all of our kids. He is a cool and nice guy.”

A former Riverdale sixth-grader, Tessa Johnson of Grand Island, was among students who nominated Chinick for the Freedom Award. She wrote, “He does a lot for our school and the town of Riverdale. Ed helps make our community a better place.”

“Ed is a great mayor,” wrote fifth-grader Logan Muhlbach.

Central Elementary School Principal Roger Nyffeler of Kearney wrote in his nomination letter about Chinick’s decision to become a school volunteer.

“Following a severe heart attack, as well as being a recovering alcoholic, Ed made a choice to improve his physical, spiritual and mental health ... . As students move through Riverdale School, they become very comfortable with ‘Mr. C’ and his stories. ... Ed Chinick is a true friend of education and a true friend to the students he works with.”

Chinick said he tries to be thankful, and that volunteering helps him to make the most of each day.

He said he’s happy he retired to the Riverdale/Kearney area almost 15 years ago, and that he’s grateful for his friends and the opportunity to contribute. “This community reminds me what Seattle used to be like. Everybody was so outgoing.”

The rain continues spitting on the windows as his reading session with the third- and fourth-graders ends. Chinick descends to the ground floor and pushes open the front door of the school, where small puddles have been forming.

Today, he’ll be walking the few blocks home alone. Chinick’s cat, Trigger, often walks beside him to the school and waits by the door, but today the feline is staying home, out of the rain.

“You don’t have to go around the world to help people,” Chinick said. “If everybody just did a little bit.”

e-mail to:
mike.konz@kearneyhub.com