This week’s Portage Life in the Spotlight is Portage Township Trustee Brendan Clancy. Clancy has been involved in the community since moving here in the late 1990’s and has done good work for the community since he set foot in Portage.
Brendan was born and raised in Chicago and is one of six children. He is the grandson of two Irish immigrants who came over while they were both teenagers. Brendan attended the Walt Disney Magnet School, which was the first of its kind, which focused on the arts. He then attended a small Catholic High School on Chicago’s Northside. He has been married to his wife Michelle since 1997 and has two daughters, Mary Kate and Bonnie.
“We moved to Portage because we wanted to start our own life and have a nice home in a nice community and kind of fell in love with it and obviously have been here ever since.”
Brendan owns Clancy’s Irish Pub in the Portage Mall which he opened in 2002 and was previously a member of the Portage City Council, first running in 1997, before being elected Township Trustee.
“Even as a young man I was very involved. I was active in the community. I was on the Edgewater Community Council, the Andersonville Resident's Council and I have just always been involved,” Clancy said “I think I learned that from my parents that you always have to give back because that is what a community is about.”
Many people do not understand what the Trustee and his office in place for. It is often misconstrued that it is just a place in which a person can go get help to pay for their utility bills. Brendan underlined many of the responsibilities of his office that 
many people are not aware of.
“When you look at the Bonner Senior Center, that is one of the best senior centers in the State of Indiana and that is under the Trustee’s jurisdiction, we take care of that and run it,” Clancy said.
He also noted that for the first time in almost 20 years the Bonner Senior Center will finish in the black in terms of funding due to an increased effort on part of the Trustee’s office to garner more grant money from the government and various organizations for things like the senior center and the parks in the unincorporated parts of the township.
“Everything we are doing, we are doing as a plan,” Clancy said.
Many also do not realize that Brendan’s office is responsible for maintaining the parks in the unincorporated parts of the township including Haven Hollow, Fessler Field and Field of Dreams. The office also takes care of cemeteries including Schrock, McCool and Blake cemeteries.
“We do quite a bit of things that people do not realize that we do,” Clancy added.
Brendan did point out one fact about his office and that is many people think that the Trustee’s office never interacts with the City of Portage but 70 percent of the people that his office helps are located within the city limits.
Brendan, being involved in the community since a very young age, attributes his passion to public service to the way he was raised and the background that he has.
“I think it was the way I was raised and what was around and the culture,” Clancy said “I think traditionally, Irish people have always wanted to help one another and have always had to come from the ground up as they say. We know what it is like to be in need, we know what it is like to be hungry, we know what it is like to have to fight for an education and it think that is honestly in the blood. You have got to love it, if it is not in the heart, then don’t bother doing it.”
The Trustee’s office has a very big event coming up this weekend, the Portage Township Summer Fest which will include an 18 ride carnival and two stages featuring 18 different live bands over two days and will be held at Haven Hollow Park in South Haven
.
“We will have great food and great family entertainment,” Clancy said.
Many of the different kids’ activities such as the moonwalk and rock wall will be free of charge and admission is free up until 3:00 p.m. and after that, it is $5 a person. 100 percent of the money that is generated will go back into the parks.
Being the Township Trustee, Brendan gets to meet many different people from many walks of life and believes that the people in Portage are the reason that it is so great.
“It doesn’t matter what city or town it is, it is about the people,” Clancy said “You have got to have that certain core group of people, and obviously the location is fantastic. It is the crossroads of America.”
Brendan’s commitment to his community is unmatched in the time and effort that he puts into bettering the lives of those around him in his community.
“I think that we have done a lot of things that haven’t been done before. We have formed a Park Department and a Park Foundation and my goal was to make the parks in South Haven better than any park around. When I drive down the road and there are 16 cars with grandparents and their grandkids on the new playgrounds, that is my paycheck” Clancy said.
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