At local nonprofit Meals on Wheels Northeastern Illinois, everybody eats. While the world hunkered down last June, the organization placed the finishing touches on a new Evanston kitchen to fully execute its mission: serving homebound individuals across the North Shore with nutritious and tasty food. Over a year later, staff and up to 30 volunteers cook, pack […]
This Thanksgiving, Northwestern Settlement is asking for your help feeding over 1,000 westside Chicago families. For $50, you can sponsor one hot, chef-inspired Thanksgiving meal for a family of four. This ongoing pandemic continues to negatively affect many low-income families. “Our year-round food pantry and support services increased by 400% in 2020; we served more […]
Child Mind Institute, an independent, national nonprofit dedicated to transforming the lives of children and families struggling with mental health and learning disorders, hosted its 2021 Virtual Fall Luncheon in the Bay Area on Wednesday, September 29. Led by Child Mind President and author of The Scaffold Effect: Raising Resilient and Secure Kids in an Age of […]
ReDEFINED Fitness calls itself the “neighborhood’s toughest gym,” but Eric Smoot and Silviu Gansca, co-owners of the Wilmette fitness outpost, have a soft spot for giving back. Every year for the past 20 years, they have challenged their clients to not only build their strength and endurance but to support communities in need. The fitness studio, […]
Alex Roman’s mom picked him up from school one afternoon in seventh grade and had some news. “She said, ‘I just signed you up for rowing,’ and I was like, what?” Alex recalled. “I didn’t know anything about the sport. The first thing I thought was, that’s a sport with a lot of rich, white […]
In the summer of 2018, 2021 Firefighter Hero Award recipient Quention Curtis, who is a firefighter with the Chicago Fire Department, founded the Black Fire Brigade. It was a response to inner city crime, which impedes the future of young people in our city and disproportionately affects Black communities. The non-profit organization provides assistance with tuition for young […]
Curt’s Café offers more than just a good cup of coffee, a tasty sandwich, or a mouth-watering muffin. It provides hope and learning to young people who often face challenges to finding success in life. Curt’s Café, with locations in Evanston and Highland Park, was founded to help at-risk young people build positive futures. The […]
As a professional mentor with Friends of the Children, Phalon Carpenter works with second and third graders facing high levels of adversity. She is committed to mentoring this group of students from kindergarten through high school. During the Covid-19 pandemic, Phalon has broken boundaries to make sure her mentees don’t fall behind as school has gone virtual. She trained students’ caregivers and […]
According to an informal poll of moms, infants use between eight and 10 diapers per day, or about 70 in a week. Now, imagine if a baby only had 50 diapers to get through the month? Well, this is a very real dilemma for many low and medium-income, Chicago-area babies. To help those babies, The […]
The ‘Old Dolls’, the 2021 American Red Cross of Illinois Healthcare Hero Award recipients, are a group of nurses who have been working together at Northwestern Memorial Hospital since the 1980s. When the COVID-19 pandemic began, the group decided to continue their work in the Intensive Care Units despite the healthcare pandemic. Each of these nurses were […]
