Spring at R CITY

At R CITY, our hearts are very, very full, reflecting the abundance of the year we have had so far with our beloved young people in Humboldt Park. And it’s only April! Here are some key highlights from this year so far.

Ultimate Battle, which is R CITY’s how-much-HW-can-you-do-in-20-minutes competition, is now equipped with *prizes*.The “league leaders” in Homework Points, Helpfulness Assists, and Behavior Fouls are looking forward to their hard-earned field trip! Can you sense the excitement?

We added a new enrichment class–coding–and crowdfunded to purchase shiny new Chromebooks. We’re getting them all set up and ready to kick off Code Combat ASAP.

Large group sessions received a theatrical boost with a new skit series surrounding a troubled but lovable protagonist “Snake Eyes,” whose adventures have sparked sympathy and an eager crowd of fans. Among them are our music class students, who authored a song reflecting his encounters with the world’s darkness and light.

Finally, plenty of goofiness to go around.

Of course, we couldn’t have done all this without your support! At the beginning of this year, we set a goal of 100 new gifts of $30 monthly, and we’re over 1/3 of the way there! Use your resources or relationships to join us in Building the Path!

Quattro Development Builds the Path

One of the greatest joys of working at R CITY is to build relationships with our supporters and hear stories of why they choose to invest in our young people. The following conversation features Rob Walters from one of our business donors, Quattro Development.

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What does Quattro Development do? 

Quattro Development is a retail development company started in 2007 by Rob Walters and Mike Liyeos. We purchase well located properties across the country, construct free standing and multi-tenant retail buildings on the properties and lease them to national retailers such as Chipotle, Chick-Fil-A, Vitamin Shoppe, Mattress Firm, and Starbucks. We have developed over 60 properties in 17 states. Quattro Impact was set up as a vehicle for Quattro Development to invest a portion of its profits in organizations and people that Quattro’s founders wish to support.

Why support R CITY? What is your interest in the program? 

The investment started with a belief in Brandon Green and that God had called him to River City Community Church and that he would be used to build a bridge between the existing church and the neighborhood that the church was moving into.  As time has passed and I have met many of the kids that benefit from the R CITY programs my desire to support the organization has only deepened.  I acknowledge a group of amazing kids who are in need of love and support and I have seen how R CITY is uniquely situated to provide this.  My dream is that the kids who benefit from the programming will go on to be leaders and agents of change on their own rather than statistics.

Any words you have for other businesses not yet engaged? 

A relatively small investment can go a long way with R CITY because there is virtually no overhead.  An investment in R CITY is an investment in the mental, emotional, and spiritual life of great kids that are lacking many of the resources that many of us take for granted.

Anything else you want to add? 

I believe that if each neighborhood in the city had one or two R CITYs in it so many of the problems with crime, unemployment, and poverty would shift. As a business owner I benefit from what Chicago has to offer but also feel a responsibility to make the whole city “the best city in the world” and not just certain parts.  I believe that West Humboldt Park will be a better place because of R CITY.

Thank you again Quattro Development for building the path with R CITY! For more information on the great work Quattro Development is doing, visit www.quattrodevelopment.com

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To discover how your business can help build the path, e-mail our director.

Harmony Health Plan Builds the Path

On February 27, 2017,  WellCare Health Plans, Inc. on behalf of its subsidiary Harmony Health Plan, Inc., disbursed $18,000 in the form of 13 micro-grants to community-based organizations. These micro-grants will support nonprofit organizations that provide crucial social services around transportation, behavioral health services, and youth programming.

For a small, new community-based organization, micro-grants increase capacity for existing programs and create possibilities for new ideas and ventures. “Thanks to Harmony’s support, River City Community Development Center will now be able to provide the youth of West Humboldt Park with holistic after-school support to help set them on the path for a healthy and successful future,” said Elizabeth Galik, executive director at River City. “We are so grateful for Harmony’s investment in the incredible youth of our community and, by extension, the future of our city.”

Business Gifts Build the Path

With special thanks to Cambium Networks

As a nonprofit organization, R CITY only exists through the goodwill of others. We are so grateful for each individual, each church, each foundation that builds the path for our children to walk from cradle to career. While each gift is special and heart-warming, gifts from businesses have unique meaning, using hard-earned profits for the good of the next generation of Chicago’s workforce.

Beloved businesses supporting R CITY include:

AmazonSmile Foundation
Aon Foundation
Comprehensive Health Management
Kohl’s Department Stores
Minnesota Counseling
Quattro Impact, LLC
S & S Activewear

This month, the list was joined by Cambium Networks, a leading global provider of wireless broadband solutions that connect the unconnected. Their most recent blog post describes Cambium’s investment in R CITY and the youth of West Humboldt Park.

Our special thanks to Cambium Networks and our very faithful business donors. Thank you for all you provide on the path from cradle to career!

To discover how your business can help build the path, e-mail our director.

March Madness

As our mission says, we at R CITY continually seek to bring together the best of our city to build the path from cradle to career. Next month, we’re using March Madness as an excuse to party with some of our city’s best, our neighbors at Park Community Church – Logan Square. We can’t wait to open the River City doors wide for Pastor Jason Helveston and his crew to join our River Citizens for all the March Madness we can handle. Those big screens all around River City can do more than just lyrics, after all.

Tickets include an incredible lunch and halftime competitions with prizes and public accolades for the winners. Not only will party guests get to meet our neighborhood youth–fans of basketball both on-screen and off–but we’ll share a little bit about the vision at R CITY and how we can help build the path from cradle to career. Don’t worry, though: we won’t interrupt your game.  And just by coming you’re building the path, since all ticket proceeds will benefit R CITY.

Join us! Get your tickets here.

The greatest gift of all

Christmas Day has passed, but the season of gratitude and celebration has not! We at R City are still moved by the incredible generosity of Vredenberg Foundation, The Good Board, and Shawn King in showering our young people with gifts this year. Words not enough to convey the joy, so please see for yourself in the pictures below.

(Pictures have been taken by wonderful photographer Max Thomsen at http://www.MGPHOTO.com)

The giving does not stop here! If you would like to contribute to R City’s year-end campaign, please visit https://rcitycdc.org/give/ today.

Happy New Year from R City!

Have You Seen It?

This summer, our magnificent apprentices worked with professional video editors and software coders to document our time together.  They designed and coordinated interviews, covered programs, edited for content and length.  The result?  A bright and beautiful forever picture of the moment in time that was R CITY Summer 2016.

Enjoy.

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Weaving Us Together: R CITY Sunday

The mission of R CITY, from the beginning, has been this: to bring together the best of our city to build a path for families to walk from cradle to career to the glory of God.

Together
paving the way
cradle to career.

We do this formally every day: over 15 hours weekly of after-school enrichment programs, 6 hours weekly of in-school support, leadership training, sibling support for youth with childcare responsibilities, apprenticeships for teens, and more.

Yet as we build our formal path, we are continually faced with obstacles: emergencies that pull families off this cradle-to-career road.

Social troubles.
Legal troubles.
Evictions.
Medical emergencies.
Gang recruitment.
Trauma.
Trauma.
Trauma.

What is needed, we see, is not only a formal path, but what many call a “web of support”: a group of people who know people who know people who know people and who are willing to intervene for one another.

(In the original Christian language: the functional Body of Christ.)

This past Sunday, we built this web at River City Community Church.

We preached it.

We wove it.

We became it.

From our youth to our elders, each one became part of the web, filling in the gifts and joys, the networks and skills God gave them that they could offer one another.

The result is beautiful.

Gift after unique gift, offered to the whole: a safety net to catch any who begin to fall on the path of cradle to career.

We joined in.
We prayed.
We gave.

$8,000 of sacrificial and generous gifts given by individuals and families toward the support of R CITY in the coming year.  (Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.)

And we celebrated.

We celebrated the Web of Support, the Body of Christ.

The Web of Support, the Body of Christ.

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For a podcast of R CITY Sunday (10/23/16), visit River City Podcasts.
To give towards our $15,000 goal, visit rcitycdc.org/give.
To be part of our Web of Support and hear calls for support of all kinds as they arise, e-mail us with subject “Web of Support”.