3C Community Profile: Humboldt Park
Take a stroll down the Paseo Boricua corridor on Division Street and it’s easy to see why Humboldt Park is one of Chicago’s most vibrant…
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. Today, that means confronting the racial and ethnic wealth gap.
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Grant Recipient
GAP Community Center
As we navigate this immigration emergency, GAPCC has pivoted and adapted its programming to address this urgent need. Through partnerships with Grace and Peace Church, The Unity Initiative, the City of Chicago, and the Chicago Food Depository, we have strengthened our response efforts. Mindful of preserving dignity within our community, we have transformed our Food Bank into a Food Store, where clients can shop for their needs twice a month. Anticipating the demand for healthy options, we installed walk-in refrigerators and freezers, enabling access to fresh and culturally appropriate food items such as beans, greens, tomatoes, onions, and rice. As the majority of our clients are immigrants, Black and Latin we are mindful of their diets and the food they eat. Approximately 50% of the food we provide consists of fruits and vegetables, reflecting our commitment to offering nutritious choices. Individuals and families are welcomed to shop at our food store twice a month, with the quantities they receive tailored to their family size. Serving as the initial point of assistance, the food store plays a pivotal role in building trust with these individuals. Here, they discover that GAPCC is a safe and reliable resource for their needs. Beyond providing essential food and supplies, the food store serves as a gateway for us to offer additional social services to these individuals. It stands as the cornerstone of all our efforts in assisting immigrants during this pressing crisis. Over the past six months, we have witnessed a staggering threefold increase in the number of clients served. Despite this exponential growth, GAP Community Center remains not only equipped to manage the current demand but also poised to accommodate even higher numbers. This sustained capability underscores the robust structure and capacity of GAPCC to address the escalating emergency with steadfast efficiency and effectiveness. Our unique approach empowers immigrants to select the food they desire with dignity and choice. By partnering with Amazon and Target, we minimize food waste while extending our reach to serve other communities and food banks. With dedicated vans and drivers, we ensure that surplus food reaches those in need beyond our immediate vicinity. As the largest food bank in Chicago, GAPCC operates on a proven model of efficiency and community support. We stand as leaders and advocates for the immigrants and communities we serve, leveraging our firsthand understanding of their struggles to effect meaningful change. With 25 years of service under our belt, GAPCC remains a steadfast beacon of hope and support, demonstrating resilience, adaptability, and unwavering commitment to making a positive impact. In addition to the food bank we offer emergency shelter, working closely with the UNITY Initiative as well as local police departments. The food bank and emergency shelter allow us to work with and build trust within the immigrant community. We are able to introduce them to our ESL classes, lawyers, help with obtaining job permits, medical attention, school and housing.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Community Foundation
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Grant Recipient
RED CLAY DANCE COMPANY INC
Red Clay Dance Company is seeking general operating support to advance it's mission of igniting Glocal Artivism through dance. Artivism (social justice artmaking) is ethos and bedrock of the organization.
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Grant Recipient
GREATER WEST TOWN COMMUNITY DEVELOPMENT PROJECT
Greater West Town Project (GWTP) seeks to continue our partnership with Chicago Community Trust to help close the racial and ethnic wealth gap at the household and community levels in Chicago. GWTP has been committed to this work for over 35 years through educational and economic empowerment in disinvested communities in Chicago, particularly on the West Side (East and West Garfield Park, North Lawndale, Humboldt Park, Austin, and Belmont Cragin). With funding from Chicago Community Trust, GWTP will seek to enhance our Occupational Skills Training (OST) and Career Pathways (CP) programs. GWTP’s programs are strategically designed to respond to poverty, unemployment, and lack of educational attainment by creating access to economic opportunities for multi-barriered and historically disinvested community residents. GWTP’s OST program offers two certified tracks in the high-growth industries of Shipping & Receiving (12 weeks) and Woodworking & Solid Surface Manufacturing (15 weeks). These programs fully incorporate technical skills with basic skills remediation, wraparound services, and 12 months of post-program support, including job readiness and job placement. Both trainings are approved by the Illinois Board of Higher Education and nationally accredited by the Accrediting Commission of Career Schools and Colleges. Two employer partner Program Advisory Committees (PACs) composed of local employers meet regularly to advise GWTP on curricula and industry best practices. In addition to OST, GWTP is proposing additional programming for participants who need immediate employment through our Career Pathways (CP) program. CP provides career services that include case planning and management, Individual Education and Employment Planning (IEEP), job readiness training, job placement, and follow-up services. With funding from CCT, GWTP proposes: - GWTP will recruit and enroll 90 participants in state-approved, certification-granting Occupational Skills Training programs. 72 out of the 90 participants will complete training and earn an occupational skills certificate, and 63 of those will be placed in living-wage employment with an average wage of $18/hr. - GWTP will recruit and enroll 40 participants in the Career Pathways program. These participants will receive job readiness training, job placement, and ongoing support. 30 out of the 40 participants served via the Career Pathways program will be placed into employment and earn an average wage of $16/hour.
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Grant Recipient
Chicago Community and Workers Rights
Chicago Community and Workers’ Rights (referred to in this application as Chicago Community) houses a worker-owned cooperative incubator (EJE - Economic Justice and Equity for Collective Development), which includes providing outreach and education surrounding general cooperative concepts, and provides alternative business models that empower workers to create collective wealth and opportunities for their communities. There is a lack of equity and justice that leads to the poverty rates in the community we serve; the types of jobs offered to workers provide no unions, unsafe working conditions, lack of a liveable wage, and no opportunities for growth. We believe in economic justice, and are working to support low-income workers and Latinx communities by helping them access more opportunities to set their own business goals, work standards, and create their own wealth through cooperatives, collectives, or family businesses. Chicago Community and Workers’ Rights will continue to provide outreach and education on Worker Cooperatives to Latinx immigrant communities on the Southwest Side of Chicago. The organization’s goal is to provide outreach and education on worker cooperatives, and ensure that the community we serve familiarizes itself with the concept of worker-owned cooperatives, and how beneficial they are to both the community and workers. Not only will we continue to find workers who want to participate in our cooperative incubator and successfully create a cooperative, but our organization will work to encourage community support for emerging and existing cooperatives. Worker-owned cooperatives benefit the community because they give back the neighborhoods, and our organization hopes to conduct outreach to help those we serve understand how important it is for them to support these businesses. Chicago Community and Workers’ Rights will continue working to create an ecosystem that supports each other, and towards expanding equity, social justice, and workers rights. Our organization will also continue to work with Raise The Floor to advance pro-worker laws, as well as the Illinois Worker Cooperative Alliance to promote economic equity and support for worker cooperatives in communities of color. We will continue to work and collaborate on initiatives, projects, and campaigns with many organizations across the state to defend the rights of workers, fight racial inequity, and advocate for laws and policies to promote and advance the living conditions of workers of color and their families.
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Grant Recipient
Trust For Public Land
Trust for Public Land (TPL) requests support from Chicago Community Trust for two distinct but interrelated activities in the Riverdale Community Area of Chicago. The first activity is to serve as a third-party coordinator for the various projects and investments underway or forthcoming that are centered around 130th Street at the north end of Altgeld Gardens. The second is to support the development of a park and walkway on the south side of 130th Street, between approximately Ellis and Eberhart Avenues. With leadership from People for Community Recovery (PCR) and under a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with the City of Chicago Department of Planning and Development (DPD), TPL will coordinate the work of DPD and its sister departments and agencies and community organizations that will ultimately lead to the development of the Hazel Johnson Memorial and Environmental Justice Walkway (the Walkway) along 130th Street at the northern edge of Altgeld Gardens in Chicago. These are separate efforts, with the latter being heavily reliant on the former: whether and how the Walkway is developed and integrated into the other ongoing projects is dependent on the success of the coordination effort. Serving in a coordinator role concurrent with helping establish the Walkway, TPL will communicate with various local leaders seeking to build additional place-based economic development initiatives and create conditions for advancing a high quality of life for residents of the Riverdale Community. Some of these initiatives include: * Carver Park & Altgeld Gardens Open Space Network Planning - CHA (Chicago Housing Authority) recently launched a planning effort to revitalize Carver Park and guide new open space network connections within Altgeld Gardens. *Red Line Extension (RLE) - with a new CTA red line station at 130th Street *130th Street Streetscape – Chicago Department of Transportation (CDOT) will be starting Phase I of a streetscape study for 130th Street that includes a “side path” for cyclists and pedestrians that will connect with Major Taylor Trail via Indiana Avenue and 127th Street * Ton Farm - remediation of city-owned parcels along and adjacent to the Little Calumet River for future farming sites * Improvements at Beaubien Woods - Forest Preserves of Cook County (FPCC) shoreline reconstruction to include a new shelter and accessible canoe and kayak launch * Other potential developments - including a grocery store on 130th Street and rehabilitation of the C Building as an environmental justice center. Some of these projects (i.e., RLE and 130th Street Streetscape) could directly impact the Walkway because they will be in the same general area, while others will not. Regardless, these projects should be coordinated as much as possible for their own benefit and the benefit of the community. No other organization is taking on the role of coordinator, and this role is important for maximizing the Greenway’s potential to catalyze further economic opportunity in the Riverdale Community area.
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Grant Recipient
Marwen Foundation
Marwen seeks to enhance access to arts learning and cultivate a greater sense of belonging primarily for youth from Chicago’s low income communities, which are predominantly communities of Color. Moreover, Marwen strives to offer equitable employment opportunities for Chicago’s young, emerging, and established artists. On an organizational level, Marwen is in the process of establishing concrete goals and strategies to stabilize and strengthen our internal capacity and fundraising.
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Grant Recipient
CARA PROGRAM
Cara Collective seeks to build a more inclusive economy, one where we bridge the racial wealth gap and cultivate opportunities for gainful employment. Our project, Comprehensive Workforce Development Supports and Compensation, provides cash stipends to aid and incentivize job seekers’ ability to complete the Cara program, which leads to a greater chance of securing and sustaining a quality job. The project takes a three-pronged approach that builds on our core program model and includes training and job placement support, resource support, and cash support. Thanks to funders like the Chicago Community Trust, we piloted the introduction of cash support during FY23 to incentivize participants at critical milestones throughout the participant journey toward employment and in recognition of job seekers’ need for access to income during their training. Through this grant, we will continue to implement this pilot with the goal to assess the model by understanding the level of incentive that promotes program completion (thus preparing participants for jobs) and at what milestones, while also ensuring the financially stability of this program long term.