Multi-tasking teen cited for passion
Thornton student-athlete receives surprise recognition for his charitable work
When Jonathan Rodriguez woke up Friday morning, he made sure to sing Happy Birthday to his sister before he headed to work at his father’s Hazel Crest tire shop.
Even though his sister, Valeria, turned 14 Friday, it was Jonathan, a senior at Thornton Township High School in Harvey, who received a surprise party courtesy of the PepsiCo Foundation and Buddy’s Helpers.
For years, Rodriguez has donated his time and done charitable events for those two groups. Fifteen minutes into his shift at JR Tire Shop and Brakes Services, he was working on a tire when he was greeted by TV cameras, soccer teammates and members of Thornton’s staff. He was presented a check to use for his favorite charity and tickets to a future Chicago Fire game for his family.
“Usually, I am with a group surprising someone,” Rodriguez said. “Today I got surprised. It’s crazy.”
Not as crazy as his schedule. He is a full-time student and is ranked No. 1 in his class. He is taking classes in the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, which Thornton
Principal Tony Ratliff proclaims is “the absolute toughest curriculum in the nation.”
Rodriguez is on the soccer and swimming teams, is a volunteer soccer coach at Rosa
L. Parks Middle School, a youth program coordinator for the PepsiCo Foundation, a District 205 Special Olympics basket
ball and swimming volunteer coach, and a member of the district’s student board of education.
He also works 25 to 30 hours each week in his father’s shop.
Rodriguez has a lot on his plate and says he doesn’t write his schedule down, he keeps it all in his head.
“Growing up, my life has really been fast-paced,” he said. “That’s really helped me during this program. I try to manage my time and focus on getting things done in a set amount of time because I know that if
I don’t, it’s going to be a disaster.”
Volunteering with PepsiCo and Buddy’s Helpers is time consuming, but it’s something he wants to do.
“If you can, why don’t you offer a helping hand?” he said. “Why not put a smile on someone else’s face? That’s what really gets you going and gets you happy. I don’t do it to get attention. I do it because I really enjoy it. It’s something that I like.”
“Whenever we have a project or something that needs to be done, he is the first to volunteer,” said Joe Trost an official with the PepsiCo Foundation and founder of Buddy’s Helpers.
Ratliff said he is extremely proud of Rodriquez.
“We could change communities overnight with 10 Jonathans around,” he said.
Wildcats soccer coach David Gonzalez soccer coach added: “If all of our players turn out like Jonny, it would make our lives a million times easier,” he said. “He is a perfect kid and we appreciate everything that his family does.”
Rodriguez said his parents, Jesus and Laura, have helped him learn to put in hard work in everything he does.
He said he has applied to 16 colleges and has been accepted by eight. He is waiting until April to see if some of the Ivy League colleges he applied to will show interest. He had hoped to receive a soccer scholarship, but he thinks those chances might be hurt because of the lack of play during the pandemic.
Soccer or no soccer, he has a chance to be a firstgeneration college student in his family. But he doesn’t want to be the only one.
“I hope my sisters (Valeria and Jimena) will also put in the hard work, and I want to set an example to them,” he said. “I want them to work hard on and off the field.”
After sunset on May 31, 1983, and before dawn the next morning, a showcase at the Louvre was broken into and two pieces of 16thcentury Italian armor were stolen in one of the most mysterious heists in the museum’s history.
Nearly 40 years later, the two items — a ceremonial helmet and a breastplate — were identified in the private collection of a family in Bordeaux, in western France. The police are investigating how the items ended up in the family’s estate and who was responsible for the theft.
“The Louvre is delighted that these two pieces of Renaissance armor have been found thanks to the work of investigators,” the museum said in a statement. It added that what happened on May 31, 1983, remained “an enigma,” with few details known to the general public.
The museum did not respond to requests for more information about the circumstances around the theft, the identity of the family who had the armor or what prompted the family to have their private art collection appraised.
In January, according to local news reports, the items turned up in Bordeaux. An auctioneer called on an expert in antiquities, who identified the items as the two that had been stolen from the Louvre in 1983, the French newspaper Le Figaro reported.
The two items, thought to have been made in Milan in the second half of the 16th century, will be put on display as soon as the museum reopens, the Louvre statement said. They were bequeathed to the Louvre, one of the most visited museums in the world, by the Rothschild family in 1922. The Paris museum said that the 1983 theft had “deeply troubled all the staff at the time.”