Cubs Care, the charitable beneficiary of the Chicago Cubs and a fund of the McCormick Tribune Foundation, has announced a $50,000 grant to begin funding the new Cubs Care Courts at the gymnasium for the planned Center on Halsted street. The gymnasium's basketball center court will carry the Cubs Care logo, and is the focal point of the Center's recreational area.
"We are ecstatic about the Chicago Cubs and Cubs Care participating in this important project," said Robbin Burr, executive director of the Center on Halsted. "The entire community is really pitching in to help the Center on Halsted become a huge success."
Upon completion in 2006, the Center will provide recreational, cultural and educational programs, as well as social and health services, to the Lake View community and beyond. Formerly Horizons Community Services, the Midwest's largest lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) social service agency, the organization recently changed its name to Center on Halsted and will continue to grow programs in anticipation of the move to the new facility from its current location at 961 W. Montana St. The new facility will also be home to numerous LGBT community organizations. The three-story center will house meeting and office space, performance space, a multi-purpose gymnasium and a rooftop garden.
Cubs Care announced a total of $125,000 in grants to benefit five Chicago charitable organizations, four of which are based in the Lake View community. In addition to the gymnasium at the Center on Halsted, the grants will fund continued juvenile diabetes research, accessible healthcare and prescription medication for the underserved and underinsured, and telephone access for job-seeking homeless and phoneless men and women in Chicago. A description of the recipients follows.
The Juvenile Diabetes Research Foundation (JDRF) is the leading advocate of Type 1 (juvenile) diabetes research worldwide. Its mission is to find a cure for diabetes and its complications through the support of research.
St. Joseph Hospital organized the Lakeview Community Health Center in 1983 to address the needs of those in Lincoln Park and Lake View who lack adequate financial resources for health care. Doctors from St. Joseph Hospital donate their time to provide a full range of services including preventative care, geriatric care, immunizations, vaccinations and assistance in filing for Medicaid and Medicare. The Community Health Center provides a sliding fee scale for exams and prescriptions based on a patient's ability to pay.
The Chicago Women's Health Center is a collective of women, including health workers, counselors, outreach health educators and doctors, who work together as a team to provide health education and high quality, sensitive, accessible gynecological and mental health care to women in the Chicago area. It is the longest operating women's health collective in the United States.
Operating on-site at shelters throughout Chicago, The Employment Project (TEP) assists those who are homeless or at risk of becoming homeless to gain stability through employment. TEP's Community Voice Mail (CVM) program is a 24-hour message taking and retrieval system giving homeless and low-income men and women a reliable way of communicating with employers. Through CVM, a network of more than 40 non-profit organizations at more than 50 sites in the Chicago area are able to provide clients with private phone numbers, personalized greeting messages and an "800" number from which messages can be retrieved at no cost.
Cubs Care, the charitable beneficiary of the Chicago Cubs, helps transform the lives of children, families and individuals by providing grants supporting programs for youth sports, children with special needs, victims of domestic violence and the general needs of the Lake View community. Since 1991, Cubs Care has granted more than $8 million to Chicago area charities making a difference in the lives of thousands of Chicagoans. |
