Paving the Path to Homeownership for Housing Choice Voucher Holders
Since the mid-20th century, homeownership has been one of the most important vehicles for building wealth in the United States. According to research from the…
Grants
Featured
Our Grantmaking Strategy
For more than 100 years, The Chicago Community Trust has convened, supported, funded, and accelerated the work of community members and changemakers committed to strengthening the Chicago region. From building up our civic infrastructure to spearheading our response to the Great Recession, the Trust has brought our community together to face pressing challenges and seize our greatest opportunities.
-
Grant Recipient
Think Outside Da Block
Think Outside da Block (TODB) is a reputable organization established in the Greater Englewood community. We engage with nearly 3,000 children, youth and families each year, from over 26 zip codes across the Chicagoland area. TODB is proposing to host five additional events and six events total, three events during the Memorial Day weekend and three events between June 6th and June 26th. During the Memorial Day weekend TODB’s three Safe and Peaceful youth focused events will be an intergenerational game night on Friday, Saturday will include a block party style kickback event for youth 12-24 in the Chicago Lawn community and Sunday will include a block party style kickback event for youth 12-24 in the Greater Englewood community. Between June 6th and June 26th TODB will host three additional events in the Greater Englewood community including: community-wide learn to ride event, community-wide bike repair event and culminating Roll-N-Peace ride. Think Outside Da Block has adequate staff and has completed the planning. Safe and Peaceful funds will be used to increase marketing, rent/purchase equipment, provide food, games, prizes, disc jockey, security, permits, porta-potty, additional staff time etc.
-
Grant Recipient
Pivot Arts Inc
To help fund "The Memory Place," a multi-arts performance amplifying stories that have too often been left out of the public narrative about our collective past. Audiences come together as a diverse and vibrant community through theater, dance, music and interactive experiences that highlight hidden histories.
-
Grant Recipient
As One Chicago Inc
As One Chicago, a Chicago-based 501c3 nonprofit, founded and led by Roderick Williams, has served as a staple and pillar in Chicago offering a safe place of refuge for those who otherwise wouldn't have it. Our organization has successfully begun bridging the gap in various sectors and is already working with low-income residents within the community for trauma-informed care to ensure the physical and emotional safety of youth is addressed. With this funding, As One Chicago will expand its existing weekly out-of-school-time programming that incorporates mentorship and trauma-informed care while exposing economically disadvantaged youth to arts and culture during Memorial Day weekend and the gap in June. The weekly convenings will allow East Garfield Park youth to come together in an organized fashion to act in their self-interest while promoting peace and safety. This programming will support establishing an infrastructure for a community to draw attention to an issue, acknowledge individual trauma, offer catharsis after trauma and communicate across cultural and language barriers, ultimately promoting positive health and societal outcomes – serving as a vehicle for change.
-
Grant Recipient
Wrap Your Beyouty Movement
The Wrap Your beYOUty Movement village of healers, leaders and community members is excited about the opportunity to work with more children during this very crucial part of the year. The Program Director has begun reaching out to youth organizations to offer healing and creative arts circles with youth ages 10 to 17 through mid July. Wrap Your beYOUty community partners such as La’Keisha Gray-Sewell (Girls Like Me Project), Akua Lanu (Black Beauty Cutie, Jacob Carruthers Center for Inner City Studies), and Aya Cook (Haji Healing Salon) are positioned to assist WYBM’s youth outreach, soliciting youth participation from neighborhoods across the south and west sides. The funds will be used to compensate healers, facilitators and many of the Artist’s that will participate in WYBM’s summer festival that will take place later this summer, Gele Day. The funds will also pay for food from local businesses, youth incentives, circle supplies and venue costs.
-
Grant Recipient
Kids Off The Block, Inc.
KIDS OFF THE BLOCK (KOB) has the capacity to provide support for children youth during Memorial Day weekend and the gap time between CPS ending and the Park District beginning (June 6-26). We will create positive events and activities to include recreation, academic/skill-building support, violence prevention sessions, computer training and arts/music programs. These events will occur during the grant period and beyond. Programs and services offerings will be offered by KOB Monday-Saturday from 9::30 am – 9:30 0 pm.
-
Grant Recipient
Community Desk
Apple Runway is a nonprofit organization seeking to improve the quality of life and promote a fulfilling educational experience for students and teachers in the Chicago area. We believe that an equal opportunity to a quality education is extremely important, especially at an early age, and focus all of our programs around this core goal. We also set out to create a sustainable organization and structure that could ensure that donor funds are managed responsibly and with the highest impact possible. When we founded Apple Runway in 2020, we set out a target of 100% of donor funds going directly to our programs and the communities we serve, with none being allocated to overhead, salaries, or other operational expenses, we’re proud to report that this is still the case. We’ve achieved this through a unique organizational structure, focusing on a remote first approach to providing aid, and leveraging a custom built online portal to manage the flow of requests and sourcing with our partner schools, created and maintained by our team and board of directors. Apple Runway works in tandem with the trust’s vision, with our area of focus being the Chicago area, generally partnering with CPS district schools. Our core program, providing direct support sourced via requests to our partner school portal, is our key factor in working towards this goal. Via our direct support process, we ensure that students and teachers in supported schools are able to request exactly what they need to be successful, and do not need to wait on a fundraiser, budget approvals, or put themselves at financial risk to get there. We are also working to pilot a “Young Leaders Program” this year. This new program will have the goal of helping students build stronger bonds with their communities, and have the opportunity to be their own agent of change. They’ll achieve this by getting an opportunity to come up with their own idea of how they would make their school and local community better, and then through the help of local leaders and mentors, be able to go from pitching an initial idea, to creating and delivering an implementation plan, to really seeing their idea become implemented within their community. We feel that this will be an extremely impactful program, as it will give a unique early leadership opportunity to students, that will help set them up for further success through their educational journey and the rest of their lives.
-
Grant Recipient
Rose of Light MBC
Camp 1302 is a summer day camp that was founded in 2012 as an outreach of the Rose of Light M.B.C. (ROL). located in Chicago's Englewood neighborhood. Camp 1302 has become a vital resource for the families in the neighborhood. Since its founding, Camp 1302 has served more than 500 campers. We provide a safe environment for children during out-of-school times. We begin each day at 9:00 a.m. and end at 4:00 p.m., Monday through Friday. Daily, we serve the campers breakfast, lunch, and afternoon snacks at no additional cost to their families. To ensure we are meeting the needs of families throughout the summer months, our program is in session for five to six weeks. Each day each camper will be sure to have the best day camp experience of their lives through activities that provide campers with academic enhancement and creativity through reading, visual, and performing arts, including martial arts, field trips, team building, and life skills through group play and recreation, including activities such as archery. The Soul Garden We are requesting funds for our community garden. In 2021, we implemented a community garden, which we have named The Soul Garden. The Soul Garden was created on a lot that sat empty and dormant for about nine of the 10 years we have been in operation. Finally, the Executive Director and one other volunteer, with a little elbow grease, determination, and plenty of salon pas, cultivated the land until the Soul Garden was created. We saw that there was a need for our campers' social and emotional health to be addressed, especially coming out of the COVID-19 lockdown and strict social limitations. The first year, the garden did not yield food, but it did yield a sanctuary and an open space for the campers to have a serene moment in the Serenity Garden and relax by the large fire pit that was built in just a few days by a community member, along with a field for archery and lots more space for playing, or sitting and chilling, as the campers would say, with friends. Camp 1302 is approaching youth and public safety by providing a place that is conducive to learning and is filled with people who care deeply for the youth and their ability to become change agents no matter where they stand in life. We give them a chance to be kids with agency. We give them structure and introduce them to things, people, and places that may have felt intimidating or threatening. Each year, our campers get to meet with the officers in the local community policing program so that they can prove to the youth that they are human and have their best interests at heart while debunking the myth that police are heartless individuals that only hunt our black and brown children.
-
Grant Recipient
Mothers Ona Mission28
Funding is needed for additional programs for youth during the memorial day weekend and also in the month of June 6th -26 we will we service more youth from our program hire additional staff get needed supplies and provide food