What Do Our Children Want To Be When They Grow Up?

The answers are universally bold and imaginative:

A Doctor! An Explorer! A Time-Traveling Astronaut!

Their answers reveal their ability to dream. As they grow, their teachers and parents encourage those early interests. That budding astronaut heads off to space camp, and grows up to study engineering, work with a renewable energy firm, and dabble in science fiction. For many children, their dreams can become reality.

However, for the 200,000 Chicago children living in poverty, their dreams may never be realized. They are just as curious and imaginative, but their aspirations are often undermined by limited resources and greater exposure to violence. A sense of hopelessness sets in at an early age. Fortunately, Chicago Youth Centers (CYC) provides a path out of poverty and violence, offering a ray of hope to many of these children.

For these youth, CYC is the place where they can aspire, dream, and achieve. We surround children ages 3-18 with the social capital they need—innovative programming, creative and safe learning spaces, and supportive families and mentors—so they will find and stay on a path to success, and ultimately break the generational cycles of poverty and violence. In 2014, CYC initiated two pilot programs to strengthen our impact. The results were inspiring: CYC children performed better in school, attended classes more frequently, were more motivated to succeed, made concrete plans for the future, and were empowered to dream. You can read more about our CYC pilot programs and our 2015 outcomes here. 

We believe in a Chicago where every child has the same access to resources, opportunity, and possibility. Will you help us make CYC's vision a reality?

By making a gift to CYC today, you ensure that more of Chicago’s budding astronauts and crayon artists grow up to be engineers and designers. You ensure that their future is driven not by poverty, but by possibility.

Thank you for making Chicago Youth Centers the place where possibility lives.

Chicago Youth Centers Celebrates the 16th Annual Lights On Afterschool on Oct. 22, 2015

Developed by The Afterschool Alliance, Lights on Afterschool is a nationwide event designed to raise awareness for afterschool programs’ impact on children and communities. Across the nation and here in Chicago, studies show that powerful afterschool programs strengthen communities and influence the positive development of children, closing significant academic and achievement gaps. For low-income children, these programs ultimately help them break out of generational cycles of poverty.

In a recent research report, America After 3PM, a decade of data chronicles how children spend the hours between 3 p.m. and 6 p.m. —the hours when school has ended and typically before parents have returned from work.  It also defines families’ greatest needs as well as the current challenges in creating greater access to afterschool programs. The data shows an increase in the number of children enrolled in these programs, but also articulates the need to develop more options that are accessible and affordable.  More than 11 million children across the country do not have access to afterschool programs, and consequently could get left behind.

Afterschool programs keep kids safe, inspire them to learn, and help working families.  We encourage you to visit www.afterschoolalliance.org to learn more about this research, and to read CYC's essay about afterschool programs and the aspiration gap from this year's Illinois Kids Count Report. Chicago Youth Centers (CYC) is proud to be part of this significant national event.  On October 22, our Centers in Bridgeport, Bronzeville, North Lawndale, and South Shore will host events with our kids, families, and community and legislative leaders to raise awareness to support strong afterschool programs.

At CYC, our lights are always on. From our Early Childhood Education to our Teen Leadership Development Programs, we care for and about the success of our kids every day. For our children ages 6-13 in our Out-of-School Time Program, we support them with innovative and intentional programming designed to fuse academics with non-cognitive and project-based learning.  Through our three Maker Labs, we provide STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) education to children who might not experience this otherwise. Through our project-based learning curriculum, which is modeled after the national movement The Partnership for 21^st Century Skills, we teach children the skills needed to succeed in school, in life, and ultimately, in the workforce.

We surround children and teens with the social capital they need to keep them on a path to success: innovative and creative spaces to learn, engaged families and mentors, and programs designed to increase their persistence academically and expand their abilities to reason, create, communicate, and collaborate. We promote their physical development through creative and safe play spaces that include age-appropriate and cool stuff like climbing walls. Our lights are on 12 months out of the year, even after school ends. Our Summer Enrichment Program focuses on combatting summer learning loss and violence prevention.

We are paying attention to the issues and meaningful strategies to address them. We are actively and passionately addressing the major gaps often faced by low income-children, and thoughtfully and intentionally teaching and supporting the whole child.

We encourage you to become passionate advocates with us: help us strengthen the public and private partnership necessary for the well-being of our children, families, and communities. We invite you to celebrate with us between the hours of 3-6 p.m. in any of our Centers on October 22, 2015. We encourage you to come celebrate with us any day. We ask that you let your voice be heard among our legislators, encouraging them to do whatever it takes to preserve vital afterschool funding.  And, when you are asked to give, we ask that you do—as generously and as deeply as possible.   

Join us on Oct. 22 as we celebrate Lights on After School at one of our four participating  Centers:

CYC-ABC  Polk Bros. Youth Center North Lawndale | 5:30-7:30 pm

Enjoy a Pumpkin Patch Party, Shining Orange on After School. Activities include baking pumpkin squares, roasting pumpkin seeds, pumpkin carving and a Spooky Family Feud competition. There will also be an open forum for parents to talk about the importance of After School programs for the community.

CYC-Elliott Donnelley Youth Center (EDYC) Bronzeville | 5-7 pm

EDYC presents It's Electric! The evening will feature illuminating science experiments like creating glow in the dark crafts and making tornadoes in a bottle. EDYC's Summer Enrichment Staff will also run water activities for children and families,

CYC-Fellowship House  Bridgeport | 4:30-6:30 pm

CYC-Fellowship House will host Fall Fun with Families. Stop by for scarecrow-making, pumpkin carving, taffy cooking, and more!

CYC-Rebecca K. Crown South Shore | 5-6:30 pm

Experience Fall-O-Ween S.T.EA.M. Festival. All activities will focus on one of the S.T.E.A.M fields. They will be making pumpkin-volcanoes (science), building robots (technology), conducting apple drops (engineering), creating popsicle stick Frankensteins (Art), and counting spiders (mathematics).

Research and Resources:

The After School Alliance 

America After 3PM

Illinois Kids Count Report 

23rd Annual Golf Outing Recap

On Monday, August 31, we hosted our 23rd annual Chipping in for Chicago Youth Golf Outing at the Glen View Club in Golf, Illinois. Thanks to your support, this was the most successful Golf Outing in CYC’s history! We netted $109,000 to directly support CYC's children and families.

We especially want to thank our Committee co-chairs, Al Reid and Pat Hardiman, all our wonderful sponsors, and Wintrust Commercial Banking, for joining us as the Title Sponsor for the third year in a row. And of course, a big thank you to all our golfers! We can't thank you enough for your time, support, and commitment to Chicago's kids.

To see more photos from the Golf Outing, visit the CYC Flickr Page.

2015 Believe in Kids Annual Dinner Recap

Thank you to everyone who supported our annual Believe in Kids Dinner (BIK). Thanks to your support and generosity, this was our most successful BIK to date! We netted more than $400,000, and 100% of those funds raised will directly support our children, families, and programs.

We are especially proud to recognize:

• Presenting Sponsor Northern Trust, Celebrating its 125th anniversary, Northern Trust has made a lasting impact on the communities it serves worldwide. Since 1889, Northern Trust has advanced a culture of caring, investing in social welfare initiatives that provide low- and moderate-income families with critical resources, including housing, food, employment, and health care. In the last five years alone, Northern Trust has contributed more than $70 million to support non-profit and non-governmental organizations.
• Spirit of Youth Award Winner Roger Shores, Roger Shores, Senior Executive of The Marmon Group, has served on Chicago Youth Centers’ Board of Directors since 2008. As the most recent Board Chairman, he led the organization’s recent impact study and was instrumental in the development of Chicago Youth Centers’ strategic plan. He is passionately committed and his leadership embodies Chicago Youth Centers’ mission, vision, pillars, and values. His legacy will be felt for years to come. It is only fitting that he will be recognized this year as the organization celebrates its vision and the bright future ahead. The Spirit of Youth Award is Chicago Youth Centers’ highest honor. It is awarded to those who have demonstrated a commitment to the children of Chicago Youth Centers and the greater Chicago community.

For more pictures from BIK, visit our Flickr page.

Where Possibility Lives: Overcoming the Aspiration Gap

The Board and staff at Chicago Youth Centers were proud to be featured authors in Voices for Children’s 2015 Illinois Kids Count report, which compiles data to assess the well-being of children throughout the state. The goal of this report is to give lawmakers a better understanding of challenges facing children and families, and to advocate on behalf of children living in poverty. I was also honored to be a panelist with some of my peers at a luncheon hosted by Voices for Children this spring. In both the essay and my comments at the luncheon, I reflected on the difficulties surrounding our kids--difficulties that are not as apparent, but significant when considering our goal to put these kids on a path to success. I knew I had to address the aspiration gap faced by too many children today. For so many children living in poverty, they can’t even imagine what exists beyond their backyard. They don’t know about educational or professional opportunities, and they aren’t given the tools or opportunities to aspire for more.

Chicago Youth Centers gives our kids the chance to aspire. We equalize access to opportunities and resources so children have the tools to succeed and the confidence to dream. Supporters like you enable us to engage in this critical work, and we cannot thank you enough for believing in our kids.

I hope you enjoy this year’s essay, which you can read here. I also hope that, together, we continue to aspire to build a better future for our children, our families, and our city.

Thank you for your dedication and investment,

Barbara Mosacchio President and CEO