In Berwyn, Neighbors Find Light in One Another

Nowadays, it can feel particularly difficult to find meaningful community. In Berwyn, the Berwyn Public Art Initiative (BPAI)'s lantern parade has become one way residents are creating community through art.

“You know, I wanted to celebrate everybody's creativity, and it really became a way to celebrate our community and to show that we're there for one another,” Jane Sirinek, BPAI vice-president and festival founder, said. 

Sirinek said the lantern parades in her hometown of Atlanta inspired the event. She wanted to foster a similar sense of belonging and connection in Berwyn. She said organizers expected about 30 people at the inaugural 2025 parade, but estimated that 300 to 500 attended. Attendance grew again this year, with Sirinek estimating that more than 600 people attended.

The excitement over last year’s turnout led organizers to “go big this time,” Sirinek said. 

This included a new stage that served as a “lantern runway,” where participants showed off their creations and a platform for the Clamor & Lace Noise Brigade to perform. The parade included performances from the District 98 Youth Mariachi Band, Cats on Mars, and the Oak Park and Riverside Bluegrass Jam Band.

The parade also featured a “lantern adoption table” for onlookers who wanted to join the festivities and a “lantern medic table” for quick repairs.

To prepare for this year’s procession, BPAI organized multiple workshops throughout the Berwyn area for participants of different ages. During workshops led by puppeteer Rachel Hartmann, participants and volunteers created Pippy the Pigeon, this year’s grand marshal. 

Berwyn resident Lisa Olson said the workshops helped her make her idea into a finished lantern.

“The workshops, they helped me come up with the idea for the cage,” said Olson, who carried a large pumpkin head above her, held up by a cage. White tulle hung down and flowed around her, creating a ghostly effect. 

Olson and her husband are retired from the military and have lived in Berwyn for nine years. She values events like these as opportunities to see her neighbors and meet new people. 

"Every single body has this creative spark,” said Olson. “You know, you don't know what you've got in you until you do it. I love seeing and being inspired by all my neighbors.” 

Olson even opens up her backyard once a year for community meet-ups with BPAI, a tradition that began at the start of the pandemic and continues today. She described it as a necessary aspect of community-building, a sentiment shared by Kimberly Sluis, who believes that people long for connection and tangible, handmade items in the modern world. 

“I think in a world where people don't make real stuff very much anymore, and where I think we're all a little hungry for community, it feels special to be doing something fun and beautiful,” said Sluis.  

Sluis was among other participants who drew a connection to a larger feeling of disconnect from a seemingly much more apathetic society. 

Portage Park Artist Britton Walters expressed a sense of powerlessness, frustrated that elected officials aren’t doing enough to fight back from injustice. 

“My friends and community are a wide spectrum from people from all over the world … I have friends who are trans and LGBT, and the last couple years have been brutal for those communities, and it stinks," artist Walters said. “The thing that kills fascism is being silly — use art and joy to show that in the face of dark times.”

The lantern parade and the community that BPAI has fostered undoubtedly offset any disconnection and broader notion that folks nowadays are disinterested in what goes on around them. The countless beautiful, glowing creatures that marched, flew, and glided around, carried by families, seniors, and folks of all ages, were proof of that.

If there’s anything the Berwyn Public Art Initiative has shown, it is that sometimes a guiding light can come from your neighbors.