Grants

Grant Recipient

Garfield Park Community Council

Awarded: July 2022 Awarded Amount: $11,100

Grant Recipient

NAMI Chicago

Awarded: July 2022 Awarded Amount: $20,000

NAMI Chicago provides mental health support, education, and advocacy throughout the City of Chicago and parts of Illinois. Mental health and mental illness affect everyone, no matter who they are or what demographic they are from, so we are committed to answering the call for anyone who reaches out regardless of background. We focus our outreach efforts on communities and populations with high rates of uninsured or underinsured individuals, high rates of trauma and risk factors, and significant barriers to accessing mental health care outside of the crisis system. NAMI Chicago engages with communities all over the city through our training and education initiatives focused on school based social emotional learning, recovery support groups, and community outreach to connect individuals with the resources and tools needed for mental health and wellness. NAMI Chicago is seeking capacity building support from the Nuestro Futuro initiative to strengthen our team with additional bilingual staff. These lived experience staff members will provide school based mental health and wellness training in Spanish and English; answer calls on our free mental health Helpline to connect Latinx individuals with culturally competent and accessible care; and host peer-led Recovery Support groups and classes in Spanish and English for individuals experiencing mental health conditions, as well as groups for their families and loved ones to engage in a community of support while combating the isolation often associated with caregiving.

Grant Recipient

SPANISH COMMUNITY CENTER

Awarded: July 2022 Awarded Amount: $12,500

Spanish Community Center is seeking $26,250 to partially cover the salaries of two key staff members working in our immigration programs, our Immigration Director of the New Americans Initiative (NAI), and our Immigration Attorney who oversees our Access to Justice program, as well as supervises all legal immigration activities across all of our programs. SCC's immigration programming would not be able to continue without these two positions funded, and your support will ensure that quality immigration legal services remain available in our community.

Grant Recipient

P.A.S.O.- West Suburban Action Project

Awarded: July 2022 Awarded Amount: $10,000

PASO, is seeking funding from Nuestro Futuro in an effort to rescue our Immigration Legal Services clinic for those living in the West Suburban Cook County area. PASO's, immigration legal services clinic served the community since 2014 - 2019. After a 2 years hiatus the need for organizing and providing immigration legal services has not changed in the community. The organization is now ready to re-embark in this work once again.

Grant Recipient

CORAZON COMMUNITY SERVICES

Awarded: July 2022 Awarded Amount: $10,000

Corazon Community Services is entering an exciting period in its history, as we are currently expanding the scope of services we are able to offer the Cicero/Berwyn community. The principal area of our expansion is in mental and behavioral health care services, which will focus on providing in-house case management around a host of safety and violence prevention issues for the Latinx community, which makes up about 89% of Cicero's population, 60% of which are not US citizens. Funding from the Chicago Community Trust will allow us to offer critical help to this population on immigration issues, which have a substantive impact on mental and emotional health. We know that we can improve these residents' mental health and well-being by connecting them to legal aid services, facilitating pathways to legal residency and citizenship, and connecting them to other vital human services, such as counseling, housing, and public benefits, which many immigrants hesitate to pursue for fear of detention and deportation. The proposed funding of $40,000 would cover a portion of staff salaries, develop collaborations with other organizations, and put on immigration workshops and other events.

Grant Recipient

Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project

Awarded: July 2022 Awarded Amount: $10,000

The Farmworker and Landscaper Advocacy Project (FLAP) seeks a general operating grant to deliver a yearlong series of Latinx-led culturally-competent outreach and community legal education workshops to low-income Latinx immigrant workers, including undocumented workers, and their families who live in the City of Chicago. FLAP staff will link attendees needing free legal and social services to appropriate pro bono providers. To ensure it has a 24/7 presence in Chicago, FLAP will use a portion of the grant to hire Latinx immigrants living in Chicago neighborhoods to be its representatives. These community navigators will be FLAP’s eyes and ears in the community, providing education to fellow Latinxs in between formal FLAP visits and referring those with potential cases of workplace wrongdoing to FLAP staff for follow-up. In this way, FLAP will reach more immigrants more often and provide more low-income plaintiffs with access to the justice system.

Grant Recipient

CHICAGO WORKERS COLLABORATIVE

Awarded: July 2022 Awarded Amount: $15,000

Chicago Workers’ Collaborative (CWC) respectfully requests $20,000 in general operating support as a nonprofit working in the field of Immigration Services. We also would like to request $10,000 in support to build the leadership capacity of our Latinx staff.