The Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School, formerly Rafael Cancel Miranda High School, was founded in 1972 to address the needs of primarily Puerto Rican students which weren't being met by the existing public high school. One year later the founders of the school identified a myriad of community needs that went beyond the high school. Therefore they gathered Puerto Rican professionals, community activists, high school students, university students and faith-based leaders and founded the Puerto Rican Cultural Center (PRCC), which was eventually named after Juan Antonio Corretjer-the celebrated Puerto Rican national poet and political leader. The PRCC was founded to relieve neighborhood tension, eliminate prejudice and discrimination, to defend human and civil rights, to combat community deterioration and juvenile delinquency, to lessen the burden of government, to relieve the poor, the distressed, and the under-privileged, and to advance education. Initially, the PRCC focused primarily on the needs of the Puerto Rican workers of Proctor & Gamble and the Electric Co. Union. They eventually founded a workers college and an adult literacy program. They then began to ask how they can help enroll people into colleges, which led to the early partnerships with universities, Governors State University and Boricua College.

Founded in 1973, the Puerto Rican Cultural Center Juan Antonio Corretjer (PRCC) is a non-profit, community-based umbrella institution, which seeks to serve the social/cultural needs of Chicago's Puerto Rican/Latino community, with a focus on the greater Humboldt Park area. It is built on the following principles: a philosophy of self-determination, a methodology of self-actualization and critical thought, and an ethics of self-reliance best expressed in the motto, "To Live and Help To Live."

All of the PRCC's programs encourage participants to think critically about their reality and to promote an ethics of self-reliance based on social responsibility. One of these programs is the Consuelo Lee Corretjer Day Care Center for toddlers ages 15 to 24 months and a head start program for children ages 2 to 5. The day care center is one of the only programs in the state that has a bilingual/bi-cultural approach to its program which utilizes culture and technology in its curriculum. The PRCC also provides a Puerto Rican/Latino youth-led space, Cafe Teatro Batey Urbano, that exists within a threefold purpose: to showcase the talents of the area's youth through the use of hip-hop, poetry with purpose and cultural engagement; to link Puerto Rican/Latino university students with the community, particularly through publications and performances; and to provide a space in which older youth share their creative skills in a process of social ecology with younger people through mediums such as graffiti, skateboarding, internet radio production, creative writing and community gardening. Serving as a valuable community resource, La Voz del Paseo Boricua-a community newspaper was developed by the PRCC in 2004 as a grassroots bilingual periodical. On a monthly basis, the newspaper reports on stories relevant to the community, disseminating news about local events, programs, resources and developments. Since 1988, Vida/SIDA, another PRCC program, has worked to address the HIV/AIDS epidemic through education, support for individuals and families struggling to live with this infection, and advocacy/community organizing. Vida/SIDA reaches out to at-risk individuals ages 12 to adult in the predominantly Puerto Rican/Latino Chicago communities of West Town, Humboldt Park and Logan Square. Another health initiative of the PRCC is an obesity and diabetes prevention initiative, Community Organized for Obesity Prevention (CO-OP) in Humboldt Park. CO-OP Humboldt Park manages El Conuco farmer's market on Paseo Boricua, Muevete-an all ages, beginner level aerobics club for women and mothers that provides physical activity and serves as a social support for participants. Additionally CO-OP Humboldt Park provides access fresh produce through their coordination of the Chicago Food Depository ProduceMobile in Humboldt Park and the Growing Power's Market Basket program. The PRCC developed the Participatory Democracy Project (PD) in 2004 to begin engaging longtime community residents in a serious dialogue about building the future of the Humboldt Park community. PD's efforts are geared at challenging gentrification and preventing the displacement of Chicago's oldest Puerto Rican community. The PRCC also sponsors various festivals and events that foster community building, provide cultural and historical education and promote community activism. These include the Three Kings Day Winter Festival, the Puerto Rican Peoples Parade, Fiesta Boricua and the Haunted Paseo Boricua. In collaboration with the Pedro Albizua Campos High School(PACHS)has developed an Urban Agriculture Initiative designed to have students and other community members address the community's status as a food desert and the concommitant chronic diseases that have resulted. These include unconscionably high prevalences of obesity, diabetes, hypertension and cardiovascular disease. PACHS has redesigned its science curriculum with a focus urban agriculture and healthy living. For the past four years the students have been engaged in organic hydroponic and soil-based food production. The partners are developing capacity to engage the whole community in the production and consumption of fresh herbs, fruits and vegetables and in active healthy living.