Stories from the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago

February 2009

 

Drive down Chicago Avenue. It starts in the heart of the Gold Coast, goes past the Lawson House YMCA and takes you through West Town, Ukrainian Village, and Humboldt Park.  

 

The city dims in your rearview mirror and the hustle and bustle subsides. Each community is more removed than the next, but it’s not just geography. What you feel is something more profound. You’ll notice it. The lack of playgrounds, parks, businesses, restaurants, community centers, and even supermarkets. It’s an urban desert. 

 

You’re in West Humboldt Park, one of the poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods in Chicago, where 50 percent of children live below the poverty line and 27 percent of adults are high school drop outs. This is the community where the Y of Metro Chicago felt compelled to have a significant presence, where we felt we were direly needed and where we recently opened the Kelly Hall YMCA.

 

The partnership with the Archdiocese of Chicago and the Greater Chicago Food Depository allows the Y to extend its mission reach and provide additional services to this community. Now more than ever, the Y is committed to collaborating with other organizations to provide critical programs and services to families in need.  The Greater Chicago Food Depository will expand its food pantry, once housed at the Our Lady of the Angels Mission, and will serve approximately 300 families. 

 

The new YMCA will provide a safe haven for the community and a wide range of services that they have needed for so long: after-school programs, a teen center, gang intervention services, day camp, activities for seniors, a computer lab, a fitness center and the most important thing the Y can bring…a sense of hope and opportunity…something everyone deserves. 

 

Click here to help West Humboldt Park families today.