The Magnificent Mile Charitable Foundation
2011 Grant Recipients
Alliance for Community Peace
Rev. Dr. Walter Johnson Jr., Executive Director
509 W. Elm Street
Chicago, IL 60610
(312) 943-8530
The Alliance For Community Peace initiative is a faith-based project which seeks the following: improve academic performances and school attendance of students; to provide opportunities for demonstrating positive social skills, interactions, and relationships through educational, recreational, cultural and other programs activities; adopt positive decision making skills that discourage negative risk taking behaviors through life skills application; and develop meaningful work experiences leading to career and vocational fulfillment for students and families.
Cabrini Green Tutoring Program
Jill Heller, Director of Fundraising
1515 N. Halsted Street
Chicago, IL 60622
(312) 397-9119
www.cabrinigreentutoring.org
For 42 years, the Cabrini-Green Tutoring program, Inc. (CGTP) has been dedicated to defining and responding to children's needs for quality, innovative and instructional programs that are not only educational but build self-esteem. The mission of Cabrini Green Tutoring Program is to help economically disadvantaged students succeed in elementary school and beyond.
The Chicago Help Initiative
Jacqueline Hayes, Founder
155 N. Harbor Drive, Suite 702
Chicago, IL 60601
CHI provides meals every Wednesday evening to 150 disadvantaged and homeless individuals in the community at the facilities of Catholic Charities at 721 N. LaSalle Street. Local businesses, restaurants and hotels donate the food, providing a hot meal to more than 6,500 every year.
In addition to being served a nutritious meal, guests can also visit with doctors, nurses, psychologists and social workers and sign up for drug rehabilitation, job training programs, homeless shelters and literacy tutoring.
CHI partners with local businesses, residential, faith-based, social service, institutional and volunteer leaders striving to promote an atmosphere of dignity and compassion toward those in need by providing access to food, health services, shelter and employment.
Volunteers also play a significant role in the CHI program by serving the meals. They help secure guest speakers and musicians and obtain in-kind donations for incentives and prizes.
For many of the CHI guests, these weekly meals provide them with a good meal and the only source of access to medical and social services they may need to overcome their barriers to homelessness and poverty and that population has increased greatly due to the strains of the current economic conditions and include those who have lost jobs and homes over the last couple of year.
For more information, visit www.chicagohelpinitiative.org.
Chicago Lights at Fourth Presbyterian Church
Vicky Curtiss, Executive Director
126 E. Chestnut Street
Chicago, IL 60611
(312) 787-4570
www.chicagolights.org
Chicago Lights is a 501 (c)(3) non-profit community outreach organization that changes lives one at a time by offering hope and opportunity to individuals and families who face the challenges of aging, poverty, and access to education and healthcare.
Chicago Lights fosters literacy and education, alleviates hunger and homelessness and advances health and wellness through eight outreach programs including: the Center for Life and Learning, the Center for Whole Health, the Elam Davies Social Service Center, Tutoring, Summer Day, Literacy and Arts at the Near North Magnet Cluster Schools, Free Write Jail Arts and Literacy at the Nancy B. Jefferson Alternative School, and the Chicago Lights Urban Farm on Chicago Avenue.
Gilda's Club Chicago
Steve Majsak, Director of Development
537 N. Wells Street
Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 464-9900
www.gildasclubchicago.org
Gilda's Club Chicago’s mission is to create welcoming communities of free support for everyone living with cancer – men, women, teens and children along with their families and friends. The Club offers more than 200 free events each month, including support and networking groups (e.g., wellness groups, family groups and diagnosis-specific groups), classes in Yoga, Tai Chi, Art, Writing, Nutrition and Healing Arts. The Club hosts three to four lectures per month, including both medical and psycho-social or alternative medicine topics. Diagnosis-specific information lectures feature physicians or licensed clinicians and provide members with the opportunity to learn more about cancer management and the latest advances in cancer treatment. The Club also regularly hosts social activities such as potluck socials, meet-and-greet dinners, and holiday celebrations including culturally-specific activities. Noogieland, an area dedicated to teens and children facing cancer is designed to address the psychosocial needs of children living with cancer and offers support and bereavement groups, child-supervised play, camp programs, parenting workshops and family activities such as our annual Halloween and Holiday celebrations.
Last year, Gilda's Club Chicago hosted more than 10,500 member visits to the main Club house and at Gilda’s Club Chicago satellites at Northwestern University Medical Center, Rush University Medical Center, Advocate Illinois Masonic Medical Center and the University of Chicago Medical Center. Since the Club openned, it has served members from 92% of all Chicago Zip Codes. All activities are free.
Happiness Club
Maureen Schulman, Board President
c/o Wright College
4300 Narragansett Ave., Room E-116
Chicago, IL 60634
(773) 481-8264
www.thehappinessclub.com
The Happiness Club is a diverse group of 50 Chicago kids who promote positive values and social change through original hip hop and pop music, dance and poetry. The Happiness Club kids create all their material based on issues kids themselves deem important. The group sings out against drugs, gangs, violence and smoking and says yes to education, tolerance, high self-esteem and helping the environment. They recently won the Mayor's Office of Environmental Affairs' 2010 Earth Day video contest for their music video "So Hot," created to increase awareness of global warming. The Happiness Club's goal is simple: to capture the attention of kids through the pop culture mediums of music, dance and urban poetry and impact them with the positive messages within the lyrics. The Happiness Club's emphasis on positive values and a strong work ethic help students grow into adulthood with a set of ethics, leadership skills and the confidence that anything is possible.
Lawson House YMCA
Gloria Johnson, Executive Director
Lawson House YMCA
30 W. Chicago Avenue
Chicago, IL 60654
(312) 932-1163
www.ymcachgo.org/content/home.aspx
Since 1931, Lawson House has provided safe, affordable housing for
Chicago's men and women. Now the largest single-room occupancy (SRO)
supportive housing facility in the Midwest, it plays a key role in
Chicago's efforts to address homelessness.
The Ogden International School of Chicago
24 West Walton Street (under construction reopening in September 2011)1443 North Ogden Avenue (east Campus serving grades Prek-5)
1250 West Erie Street (west Campus serving grades 6-12)
Chicago, IL 60610
www.ogdenschool.org
The Magnificent Mile Charitable Foundation awarded grants totaling $47,500 to ten neighborhood non-profits, including a major grant of $25,000 to Ogden International School of Chicago. Read the press release here.
Watch the above video narrated by veteran newsman Bill Kurtis and to learn why Ogden is a leader in education for Chicago Public Schools.
The Ogden International School of Chicago serves as the public school for students from a racially, ethnically and socio-economically diverse community on the near north side of Chicago. As a relatively small neighborhood school, it provides a comprehensive liberal arts education, requiring students to meet high standards so they may be thoroughly prepared to successfully complete secondary school and advance to further educational challenges. In addition to its general education program, the school is designated as one of two elementary preparatory schools for students planning to enter the International Baccalaureate Program, one of the most prestigious academic programs in the world and it is Ogden’s interest to provide all students with a rich and rigorous curriculum of accelerated education.
The student body represents all major racial groups. The school’s characteristics are very diverse and in some areas, continue to fluctuate. The number of students meeting/exceeding the State Goals for Learning continues to increase. As a school community, it is faced with an increase in residential development. Both the increase in the housing market and the decision of parents to choose Ogden School has made its student population grow. It is addressing the issue of overcrowding and the need for organizational change to best meet the needs of its student body. The current school site has been identified for a replacement school as part of Mayor Daley’s “Modern Schools Across Chicago” Project to better meet the educational needs of the students moving into the area. Planning and development will be at the forefront of the 2010-2011 academic year.
The $25,000 grant will address the school’s current needs and will focus on literacy resources to integrate Ogden Elementary School’s international philosophy throughout the curriculum and for after school tutoring of students in reading and mathematics.
After a careful review of the school’s standardized test scores and students’ daily performance, the staff have found that a number of students fall in the 3-5 stanine range. These students are in classes where the majority of students in the class are above the 6th stanine and can more easily grasp concepts. Students who have special needs are provided individual education plans and are serviced by special education teachers. There is a need to provide additional instructional resource for those students who need support in their academic subjects. The school’s goal is to intervene multi-dimensionally in the child’s world by working with the child, the school and the family to establish regular behavioral and cognitive routines that maximize planning, organization, decision-making and regulation. Vital to accomplishing this goal is establishing environmental supports that will help children fully develop their executive functions, ultimately helping them reach their full potential by turning supports into behaviors that become routines. Additional academic support by teachers after school would better be able to prepare them for secondary school, positively impacting their college and career years.
In addition, Ogden has embedded internationalism in all aspects of its educational program. As the school continues to assess its instructional program, it is imperative that students are well prepared to meet the stringent requirements for high school. Embedded in the program are opportunities, both free of charge and tuition-based, throughout the year for students to study at off-site community locations and/or in other locations within the state, country and abroad, creating a challenging and integrated curriculum aligned with the Illinois State Goals for Learning. A number of students are interested in the traveling option but have limited financial resources. Funding is necessary to provide resources for its school library and reference center at all levels so students can learn about other cultures. These materials will be used in its inquiry based model of instruction and be aligned with its literacy, science, and social science curricula.
Pro Se Services
"Operation Chi-City Streets"
Dinae Knox, Executive Director
7950 W. Ogden
Lyons, IL 60534
(312) 925-5723
www.proseservices.org
Pro Se Services strives to provide homeless downtown Chicago with sustainable programs and services through essential stepping stones - education, employment, health, housing, nutrition, basic necessities and assets - thereby decreasing panhandling and criminal activity.
