AON Center's guest rep helps feed students

AON Center Guest Services Representative Alexandria Ward combines charm and authority with the best of them. Greeting visitors, checking IDs, and issuing passes, she is part of a team effort to guide people through one of America’s tallest buildings. But that’s just the start.

Alexandria’s upbringing suggests she can do anything, and her current life confirms it.

“I get a kick out of being creative,” she said. “I’m the silly one, but I’m very serious and professional at the same time.”

Alexandria was raised next to a fire station near a playground in Roscoe Village. On weekends, she and her little sister Kayla would pretend to be tourists in the downtown hotels they visited with their mom, who worked in the admitting department at Evanston Hospital. She sang in the Chicago Children’s Choir from third grade to sixth grade, concentrated on music at Lincoln Park High School, earned a certificate in massage therapy from Olympia College, studied criminal justice at Westwood College, and worked in hospice and oncology at Evanston Hospital.

Her 13-year-old daughter is “a really good kid” who loves to cook and play the flute, and her nine-year-old son is a “mama’s boy” who she calls “my bug.”

Alexandria was working for the door staff of a Chicago residential property when a coworker suggested she contact the Experience Management division of JLL, the real estate services company contracted with the AON Center. She noticed their excellence immediately.

“It was a really thorough process, my goodness,” she recalled. “There’s absolutely no way you’re going to be placed in a building unless your own personality matches the personality of the building.”

JLL’s expertise was also reflected in the quality of the AON Center team, which Alexandria calls “the best thing about my job.” Pre-COVID, they would assist hundreds of people every day.

“We know the rules and understand what we’re supposed to do more than any other building where I’ve worked,” she said “These people really care, and it’s awesome.”

She also developed a fondness for many of the tenants. “When the people at places like the Mid-America Club remember your face it feels good.”

The pandemic reduced the number of visitors while increasing the amount of responsibilities that the team handles — plexiglass, masks, hand sanitizer, and gloves are part of the daily routine — but it has not diminished their effort and attitude.

“We’re checking in less workers than pre-COVID, but we’re still working really hard,” Alexandra said. “When I check people in, even though you might not be able to see it, I guarantee that underneath I’m smiling ear to ear.”

Creations by KayZan

When the pandemic reduced her workload from March to June, Alexandria kept busy with Creations by KayZan, a catering business that she owns and operates with Kayla.

“We were pushing out orders left and right,” she said. “People mainly were ordering Pineapple Bowls and sub sandwiches.”

The Jamaican-inspired Pineapple Bowl comes with chicken, shrimp, or steak and a side of rice or broccoli. The chicken and shrimp are cooked in the pineapple juice, and the whole creation is served in a hollowed-out pineapple.

“The first time I tried it was my daughter’s birthday, a luau party, and then I did it for dinner and posted a picture on Facebook,” Alexandria said. “People started saying, ‘hey can I order that,’ and the next thing I know, I’ve got 16 orders.”

Besides securing all the proper licensing for the business, the co-owners have started to acquire the equipment to make Creations by KayZan a self-contained enterprise, and they recently purchased a meat slicer. “We buy the meat from an actual butcher, and cook and slice it ourselves,” said Alexandria.

Creations by KayZan’s upcoming jobs include a 60^th birthday party for 50 people, with dad helping to serve the food, but it’s not all business for these sisters.

Feeding future generations

“After CPS shut down, schools weren’t able to give lunches to the kids, so we made 150 sandwiches out of our own pocket and gave them away on the corner of 75^th and Constance by South Shore High School,” Alexandra said. “We took the surplus to the tent city in uptown. We thought, ‘this could very easily be us if we were out of work and our moms and us didn’t stick together as a unit.’”

As her kids prepare to learn at home during next semester of school, she is passing that compassion and discipline to them.

“My son takes Zoom classes and he is fine,” she said. “My daughter is going into eighth grade. I told her we’re going to start classes at 8 o’clock in the morning, work on each subject for 45 minutes, and take a 15-minute break in between. Their phones shut down at 9 p.m., so they cannot call or text anyone except myself, my mom, and my sister Sunday through Thursday.”

To learn more about Creations by KayZan, click here.