Direct Service Assistance: Soup Kitchen

Participating volunteers come from fourteen different parishes and one Jewish community to help prepare meals Wednesday through Saturday evenings. The soup kitchen has been running for over 35 years. They are on schedule to coordinate their services with other local soup kitchens.

Direct Service Assistance: Food Pantry

The St. Vincent DePaul Society of Buffalo Grove leads this ministry at St. Mary’s with an annual Almsgiving Day of Service where parishioners help collect, sort, check expiration dates, and stock pantry shelves. Parishioners can also volunteer the third Saturday of the month at pantry distribution days. They have food collections at all Masses the first weekend of each month, as well as a few special collections and/or food drives throughout the year- school food drives, post office collections, and some scout groups have drives. They assist anywhere from 125 to 200 families each month at the pantry with currently 38 active members. This group has been serving the area for over 60 years.

Peace-building: Summer Peace Camp
Parish Relationship: St. Jerome Parish

The HSLLC located in West Rogers Park is an apostolate of the Holy Spirit Missionary Sisters in the U.S. The center offers opportunities for community members to work on interpersonal skills and life skills and specifically works with women and children. The Summer Peace Camp, which runs for a month, focuses on children ages 5-16. Divided into age groups, the participants engage in activities that teach them about Diversity, Love, Solidarity, and Collaboration. The camp serviced 62 children in 2017.

Direct Service Assistance: Soup Kitchen

The soup kitchen serves 100 – 200 people every Wednesday evening, sitting guests from Uptown, Ravenswood, Lakeview, and Edgewater. They serve a three-course meal and connect their guests to social service agencies. Volunteers are parishioners, students, and parishioners of nearby churches.

Direct Service Assistance: Homeless Shelter

The ministry brings meals to various homeless shelters in the area once a month and serve 25 to 35 people per visit. For several years they’ve also been distributing coats in the month of October. These efforts are all carried out through the help of parish volunteers.

Restorative Justice: Women’s Healing Circle
Parish Relationship: St. Benedict

The St. Kateri Center of Chicago promotes peace, respect, and belonging through cultural resources and community building. They are expanding their commitment to the community by initiating the Women’s Healing Circle which hopes to promote peace and a healthy living through activities that utilize American Indian traditions that address the complexities of intergenerational trauma.

Direct Assistance: Homeless Shelter [for women]
Parish Relationship: multiple

The Well's mission is to uphold the dignity of the individual person to help each engage in their personal journey in a way that will bring positive results for the residents and children alike, free from poverty, loneliness and abuse. The Well serves single mothers and their children who are homeless, victims of domestic violence and/or poverty and who have little to no support. There are approximately 50 individuals who benefit directly from this project, and another 150 who benefit from serving the residents annually. The Well of Mercy plans to expand the present mission and incorporate women who are living the final chapter of their lives. The Well will develop a second home with a slightly different model. The women who have resided at The Well for three to four years will transfer to the next site.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry
Parish Relationship: Holy Cross – Immaculate Heart of Mary

Clients utilizing the pantry are eligible to receive food two times per month. From July 1, 2017 to May 30, 2018, the pantry served 30,951 individuals and 7,868 families. Many clients are Latino families and homeless persons. Casa Catalina’s food programs have addressed the basic human needs of the homeless, the unemployed, and the working poor to improve their health and quality of life. Their primary goal is to ensure that clients receive high quality nutritious meals that will help them to maintain their health. The pantry also offers blood pressure monitoring and conducts nutrition classes for diabetics.

Direct Assistance: Homeless Shelter
Parish Relationship: multiple

Since 1963 the organization seeks to reach out to people experiencing poverty and offering hospitality and other services like meals and shower facilities. They also offer long-term services like case management which helps their guests with housing and job opportunities. Volunteers come from a variety of backgrounds and some of them from different catholic congregations in the area. They assist with running their soup kitchen and special projects as they come during the year, some volunteers help with administrative support as well.

Fair Trade Advocacy/ Outreach: Fair Trade in the Sanctuary
Parish Relationship: none

Chicago Fair Trade is a nonprofit that since 2006 has been active in the fair trade movement and earned Chicago a Fair Trade City designation in 2011 and a Sweatshop-free City in 2014. With their grant, they seek to develop relationships in the city with religious congregations to educate the faithful about the importance of ethical trade. Their work is directly related to Catholic Social Teaching and their enthusiasm to support and educate parish communities about protecting the dignity of workers while promoting ethical purchases.

Direct Assistance: Hunger Relief
Parish Relation: Resurrection Parish

Northside Latin Progress needs to provide food in small bags for day laborers as they suffer from hunger. They do not get food stamps and of the 140+ only 10% have children and receive limited assistance. The average man exists on $9,000 to $14,000 a year in wages. Many eat once a day and in winter months less. Most live 2 miles from food pantries and do not drive. Some have no identification to go to food pantries and have been turned away due to lack of identification. In a given morning, depending on weather, we may see 20 to 35 men at a location, holidays can be 60 to 80.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry

The food pantry primarily feeds Mexican immigrants, Mexican Americans, African Americans and some Caucasians. Volume increases every year, and now serve about 640 families a month in a two-hour slot every Friday. The pantry has been in operation for eight years and has partnered with The Greater Chicago Food Depository for six years. We are currently enrolled in the free produce van which comes to our site twice a month. Our food pantry offers clothes, shoes, diapers and medical and social services. We offer a Benefit Screener, HIV, Hepatitis C and blood sugar screening as well as blood pressure checks. We also distribute “lunch bags” to our homeless clients that do not require refrigeration.

Restorative Justice: Peacebuilding

The mission of Parenting for Non-Violence (P4NV) is to promote peace in the family and community by educating and supporting parents in raising their children in emotionally healthy ways so that children can thrive personally, socially and academically in the family and in society. Our ultimate goal is to stop inner city youth violence in Chicago before it starts. P4NV provides a variety of Active Parenting publisher’s evidence-based programs to address the needs of parents of children of different ages. Within the last year, the Fatherhood program has been added and presented to African American men. P4NV anticipates that we will continue to provide our programs in 2018 – 2019 at the described sites and serve additional sites as funds allow, reaching over 350 parents.

Nutrition Education

St. Anthony’s Hospital Community Wellness Program changes as they learn from results and respond to evolving needs of those served on Chicago’s west/southwest sides. The Center for Diabetes, Nutrition, Obesity and Metabolism promotes an innovative, culturally sensitive model of nutrition education using a harm reduction approach using familiar foods rather than introducing patients to unfamiliar foods. Patients are linked to SNAP and WIC benefits that give them access to fresh vegetables. Through dietary changes, patients are able to lead healthier lifestyles.

Economic Development: Community Co-operative

TCEP is serving as a backbone and training support system for the “Flor Azteca” creating a sustainable model for a women’s cooperative business that is culturally responsive which aims to tackle local economic and gender-based disparities by spurring alternative job creation and empowering women to become economically stable and independent imbedded in social responsibility. Participants will be attending a food handling training to improve their opportunities and equip themselves with more tools to grow their business.

Restorative Justice: Advocacy, Peacebuilding, Training
Parish Relationship: Vicariate IV Ministry Commission

One of CSPL’s primary areas of focus is on the development of grassroots leaders and their institutions through community organizing training and theological and spiritual formation that is rooted in the Catholic traditions. We have thus far trained over 130 parish leaders and in March we held our first Catholic Social Teaching workshop that covered the topics of Rights and Responsibilities, Migration and Nonviolence. This event featured Bishop Manz as one of the primary speakers in addition to two local Catholic community organizers. CSPL was contracted to support the work of Bishop Manz and the Vicariate IV team by working to develop a Ministry Commission comprised of lay leaders that is focused on coordinating lay ministry formation events in Vicariate IV. This has allowed CSPL to build relationships with parish leaders from across Vicariate IV and we plan to invite many of them into this effort.

Restorative Justice: Advocacy, Peacebuilding, Training

Dominican University has launched a program to develop lay leadership among young Hispanic/Latino/a Catholics. Ministry en lo Cotidiano (“Ministry in the Everyday”) is now in its fourth year of operation. Throughout the academic year, a cohort of 15 to 17 students from Latino/a backgrounds commit ten hours per week to the program. Interns provide direct service at Catholic ministries serving Hispanic/Latino/a populations in different areas of metropolitan Chicago for nine of those hours. These partner organizations include parishes, schools, and social service organizations. The tenth hour is spent in guided group theological reflection on students’ internship experiences. All internships address the concrete realities of the communities served, such as religious education and faith formation, immigration, college access, poverty, violence and restorative justice, and health care. These experiences in local communities are a critical component for understanding and theologizing in the everyday and for addressing injustices in the communities in which they serve.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry
Parish Relationship: none

To meet the needs of 45,000 low-income participants, we procure the lean meat, whole grains, and fresh produce so often lacking in their diets. While we cannot provide all their food needs, we ensure that what we do supply is as healthy and nutritious as possible. Indeed, over 90% of the food we actively procure is nutrient-dense or protein-rich. We distribute food each Wednesday and Saturday, structuring our schedule to include morning, evening, and weekend hours that meet the needs of the working poor. Our Social Services Coordinator assists clients with determining eligibility, filing and following up on applications, and trouble-shooting denial of benefits. Accessing such income supports often means participants achieve food security. For seniors in particular, having a compassionate guide help them through the multi-page on-line application process for federal and state benefits is invaluable. Many seniors find that connection to SNAP (“food stamps”) and Benefits Access Program expands both their ability to get around and their quality of life. Last year we helped 568 individuals connect to such benefits.

Direct Assistance: Homeless Shelter

Our shelter services are designed to reduce the length of homelessness and ultimately move our clients out of crisis and into housing stability. From mid-September through mid-May, the PADS Emergency Shelter program serves 40 – 70 individuals nightly at nine rotating shelter sites, providing access to an array of supportive services aimed at reducing their length of homelessness. On-site services include a weekly medical clinic, a monthly legal clinic, referrals to mental health services, outreach from Hines Veteran’s Administration Hospital, and Housing Forward’s own supportive services and housing staff. From mid-September 2016 through mid-May 2017, Housing Forward provided 13,416 nights of shelter and 40,248 meals to 463 individuals at the PADS Emergency Shelters. Program services also include intensive case management, life skills and financial literacy training, a savings program in which clients must save at least 30% of all income, support group activities, and help with job searches. The Summer Transitional Shelter provided 1,340 nights of shelter and 4,020 meals to 63 individuals in 2017.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry; Nutrition Education
Parish Relationship: St. Eulalia

The Quinn Center of Saint Eulalia’s Hunger Ministry has been serving low-income families in the Maywood and Broadview communities for over 35 years. The ministry’s funds support the weekly Soup Kitchen and emergency food relief; nutritious food and nutrition education to the participants in our Champions for Change youth group; and nutritious meals/snacks during the Quinn Center’s 4-week Summer Camp. The hunger ministry is of utmost need for our community as many are low-income, full-time workers and have little to no access to nutritious food (0 grocery stores in Maywood, < 5 in Broadview). St. Eulalia is one of twenty-four organizations of Proviso Partners for Health, which is a health coalition formed to coordinate efforts and collaborate on strategies to improve access to physical activity and affordable healthy food environments. This partnership allows the Quinn Center to improve service to our community and share best practices to others in the coalition.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry

Clients utilizing the pantry are eligible to receive food two times per month. From July 1, 2017 to May 30, 2018, the pantry served 14, 098 individuals and 4, 678 families. Many clients are European immigrants. St. Blase’s food programs have addressed the basic human needs of the homeless, the unemployed, and the working poor to improve their health and quality of life. Their primary goal is to ensure that clients receive high quality nutritious meals that will help them to maintain their health. They also serve a weekly hot supper at the site.

Environmental Education and Action: Community Gardens
Parish Relationship: USCCB

This is the fourth year of our community garden project entitled: “Seeds of Change.” The program will benefit the 1,100 students who attend Catalyst Maria School through our gardening program, which is part of the school’s Spring curriculum. It will also have reach to numerous community residents through our community dinners and Fall Harvest Sale. Through this project we will continue to add functional improvements and additional plants to the garden as well as continue to provide educational programs for the students attending Catalyst Maria School. We will continue our collaboration with the local Girl Scout Troop(s), the cooking class and parent volunteers to harvest and maintain the garden.

Adult and Children Literacy Program
Parish Relationship: St. Damian Parish

In the community of where we have served for 13.5 years we have recognized the need to develop more literacy workshops and engaging programs to initiate peace and promote higher learning opportunities while curving poverty. The adult literacy program will help those seniors that struggle to read with grandchildren and I hope to help with that bond. I believe this will help lift the spirits in those who struggle with confidence and self-esteem. The kids’ literacy program will basically support students who fall behind and provide one on one tutoring throughout the 12 weeks of summer. The grant will support Pro Labore Dei in acquiring a new space to hold the literacy program.

Restorative Justice: Advocacy & Education
Parish Relationship: St. Gall

Warriors of Peace is a faith-based youth ministry that serves youth ages 13 – 17 in the Gage Park Community. At a weekly basis, Warriors of Peace serves an average of fifty teenagers that are seeking spiritual healing, social justice education, and a creative safe space to express their emotions, ideas, and beliefs. The project has been in operation since November of 2016. Aside from weekly gatherings, Warriors of Peace executes several events and activities throughout the year. Our major accomplishments have been organizing yearly Easter Retreats, Gage’s Park first ever Peace Walk, Annual Carrera Guadalupana, Annual Noche De Gala Anniversary Celebration, and keeping great attendance every week.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry

The pantry provides $20 gift certificates for Pete's Market grocery store to keep on hand to give to individuals when they come in to the parish office requesting assistance with food. Over the course of the last year, they have purchased and handed out over $2,000 worth of food certificates. Most people, when they come, receive 2 – 3 certificates at a time from us. This supplements the food pantry at the parish, through the St. Vincent de Paul Society. This project started in 2009 and since that time, they have given out $18,700 in food certificates.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry

The direct service assistance at St. Stephen goes well beyond food. As the St. Vincent DePaul Annual Report shows for FY2017, nearly $40,000 of direct service assistance was given to our local community for mortgage payments/rent, utilities, insurance, food, repairs, and many other needed subsidies. In addition to those direct payments, we provide food to both the local food pantry and that at St. Lawrence O’Toole. We are currently involved in two PADS sites (St. Lawrence O’Toole in Matteson and St. Emeric in Country Club Hills) providing volunteers, food, and cash on a weekly basis. We participate in the Catholic Charities Meals Program in the southern suburbs on a regular basis.

Nutrition Education

Casa Esperanza is a project which serves homeless women and children as they are moving out of shelters toward a more independent living style. The project serves 18 participants at a time. Recognizing the dynamic presence of God in our world, the project seeks to affirm that presence by responding to the needs of those who suffer and whose human dignity is injured. The food and nutrition program is one of the many programs that Casa Esperanza provides to help women who need basic food for themselves and their families as a way of combating hunger.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry

Clients utilizing the pantry are eligible to receive food three times per week. From July 1, 2017 to May 30, 2018, the pantry served 7, 248 individuals. Many clients are African American families with children, seniors, and homeless persons. St. Sabina’s service center sits adjacent to a WIC food center and lies within a corridor that is home to multiple Catholic Charities’ programs, including St. Leo Veteran’s Housing, Pope John Paul Housing, and St. Sabina’s Elder Village. The clients also have access to an employment center and offers youth services. St. Sabina’s food programs have addressed the basic human needs of the homeless, the unemployed, and the working poor to improve their health and quality of life. Their primary goal is to ensure that clients receive high quality nutritious meals that will help them to maintain their health. They also serve a weekly hot supper at the site.

Direct Assistance: Soup Kitchen

Focused on hospitality, the soup kitchen is open to anyone in the community and they do not ask for names or address. Anybody that needs a meal gets one, they also connect guests with meal programs. The soup kitchen celebrates holidays with special meals for its guests. For 24 years they have served their community and welcomed them in around their table. The soup kitchen is open to any volunteer that would like to donate their time and experience the hospitality of this community, they take donations and volunteer requests. Volunteers and guests alike have developed meaningful relationships through interactions at the soup kitchen.

Direct Assistance: Soup Kitchen

This project provides meals free of any charge to individuals and families in the community every Wednesday for 50 weeks of the year. The Oblate Sisters of Providence (OSP) Diner primarily serves people from the Morgan and Maple Park communities. From July 2017 through March 2018, we served 2,066 guests. It is anticipated that we will serve a total of 2,760 guest which represents an increase of approximately 5%. Major accomplishments this past year include: having all volunteers who will have spent 3,624 hours of service in FY 2017 – 2018 to the diner; serving home-cooked nutritionally balanced meals; having Oak Street Health make presentations to clients on behalf of community health services and health issues.

Restorative Justice: Peacebuilding & Training

I Grow Chicago (IGC) is a grassroots community organization serving the Englewood and West Englewood neighborhoods in Chicago. The mission of IGC is to grow Englewood from surviving to thriving through community connection, skill building, and opportunity. In April 2014, IGC opened the Peace House, a previously abandoned home that has been transformed into an inclusive center by and for the community. We currently operate more than 15 programs engaging roughly 800 community members of all ages in programs that promote hope, character development, healing from trauma, and access to resources within and outside of Englewood. In 2018, we are establishing a Wisdom Council, a long-standing approach to restorative justice in indigenous communities. Comprised of nine community elders and youth voices, this Council will mediate conflicts between disputing neighbors, with the goal of promoting greater accountability among those who commit harm.

Environmental Education and Action: Community Gardens

The Bowen High School Butterfly Waystation is an ongoing service-learning project that represents a visible sign of hope for the South Chicago community, Bowen high school students and their adult mentors. Together, they partner to eliminate youth violence in Chicago’s neighborhoods through peacebuilding and urban gardening. Our service-learning goal is to foster interpersonal skills, remove gender, racial, and socio-economic barriers, and educate students with the values needed to manage and transform conflict through peaceful dialogue.

Restorative Justice: Peacebuilding & Training
Parish Relationship: Ss. Peter & Paul

The purpose of this project is to educate Chicagoans in the principles and practices of nonviolence to change the culture of violence in our city. To do so, these principles and practices must be applied to oneself, the family, the neighborhood, and all the major institutions within which we live. In this project, we train parishioners and community members, including schools, juveniles, and law enforcement in the 8 steps to nonviolence as well as the 8 stages of violence and the 6 principles of nonviolence. We include character development lessons that begin with recognizing the centrality of self-respect in the learning of nonviolent responses to personal and social conflict.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry

OLGH is a community food pantry that services the Jeffery Manor area including the Porta Coeli Residence (Senior Housing). Members of the parish volunteer to participate in the ministry. The food pantry is a ministry of the church. The pantry has a goal to expand its services throughout the community. Several of the pantries in the area have been forced to close and they hope to meet that need which was left.

Restorative Justice: Training

The Vocational Arts Carpentry Program is a hands-on skills training and job training program for at-risk youth, aged 18 – 24, living in the Back of the Yards / Englewood neighborhoods on the south side of Chicago. This program directly benefits approximately 25 – 30 such youth per year. The youth in this program engage in hands-on carpentry and construction projects, and in the process gain valuable skills and abilities such as: geometry; arithmetic; algebra; teamwork; work ethic and work history; punctuality; pride in accomplishment; safety; critical thinking; efficiency; competence; respect; and entrepreneurship. Youth in the program receive a work stipend which helps with living costs such as food and transportation. In addition, youth may receive a portion of the proceeds from the sales of their created items, which teaches them to take pride in creating good-quality wares.

Direct Assistance: Food Pantry

The SS Peter & Paul holiday food pantry feeds residents of the community during the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. The pantry has been in operation since 2014. Last year they were able to feed 75 families during the winter season. They also started a community garden last year with the purpose to give away the produce to the community.

Direct Assistance: Homeless Shelter
Parish Relationship: Vicariate VI Bishop’s Office

Zacchaeus House is a non-for profit, non-treatment residential facility, providing a faith to work home for homeless and needy men in transition. All residents that came to from jail, never returned to jail and have not involved in any legal problems. They work on having their record expunged and or sealed and to become a working taxpayer and find a place of worship. This opens opportunities to obtain a stable job and move into their own apartment. All house guests and all After Care members have short and long term goals that are set to ensure healthier ways to live.