Blog
The young ladies of Girl Scouts of Greater Chicago and Northwestern Indiana’s Troop 50608 made a sweet delivery to our DuPage Center; they donated 1,200 boxes of Girl Scout cookies!
Week of the Young Child: Work Together Wednesday
In-house volunteers fill a valuable role in Legal Aid Society’s Pro Bono Program, supporting the work of LAS attorneys and expanding LAS’s capacity to serve clients in need. Dan Engel and Roxy Freel are outstanding examples of the dedication and high-quality work our in-house volunteers provide every day.
Week of the Young Child: Tasty Tuesday
Our North Children’s Center and Learning & Wellness Center are holding a Book Fair! Proceeds benefit Metropolitan’s Early Learning programs.
Our Metro Board and Associate Board of the Legal Aid Society (ABLAS) have combined forces! We’re pleased to introduce the Metropolitan & Legal Aid Associate Board, or M-LAB.
Week of the Young Child: Music Monday
The Legal Aid Society’s (LAS) Elder Justice Initiative and Metropolitan’s Adult Protective Services (APS) program have recently been working to further integrate their services, with the goal of providing more holistic, comprehensive support to the seniors Metropolitan serves.
The men in our Gerst Family Young Fathers Program work hard to improve their family and financial situations, overcoming their pasts to reach for their brightest futures. Two major obstacles face many of the dads: they have criminal backgrounds holding them back from moving forward or they are being denied access to their children, and they need legal advice.
Congratulations to Metropolitan’s own Kimberly Fay, one of the new elected members of the Mount Prospect District 57 School Board!
Family Shelter Service (FSS), DuPage County’s only comprehensive domestic violence services provider and emergency shelter, and Metropolitan Family Services DuPage (MFS), the County’s largest provider of community services, ranging from behavioral health to early childhood services, are pleased to announce that our organizations are merging, effective April 1, 2019.
Metropolitan participated in events related to the mayoral race; Metropolitan Peace Academy’s Vanessa Dereef asked a question at ABC 7 Chicago’s mayoral debate, and the we co-hosted a candidates’ forum presented by inVEST Chicago and 100 Black Men of Chicago.
In a sold-out City Club of Chicago panel, Metropolitan CEO Ric Estrada joined Lt. Governor Juliana Stratton and leaders from Erikson Institute and the Irving Harris Foundation for a discussion on effectively leveraging data to make smarter investments in early learning.
An internal Domestic Violence Summit helped educate staff in Metropolitan’s domestic violence-related programs about barriers victims face in accessing services and supports that can help them obtain justice and rebuild their lives.
At this year’s Family Day of Play, our DuPage Center’s Wheaton/Warrenville Early Childhood Collaborative gathered more organizations than ever to share community resources and activities with children and their families.
The Legal Aid Society (LAS) is expanding into Metropolitan DuPage! Two newly created positions for LAS attorneys at DuPage Center will help build on the holistic nature of Metropolitan’s services throughout all 33 DuPage communities by providing legal services and offering comprehensive, trauma-informed advocacy for victims of human trafficking and immigrant victims of crime.
In his keynote remarks at the Metropolitan Peace Academy’s Cohort Two Graduation, Chico Tillmon, YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago’s Executive Director of Youth Safety and Violence Prevention, emphasized his message of thanks above all else.
The “Austin” family lives in West Chicago. Both parents work full time to support their three active children, two elementary-aged boys and a baby sister, and the whole family participates in counseling through Metropolitan DuPage’s WeGo Together For Kids program.
“A lot of people do a lot of posturing,” says Sunni Powell, a barber who partners with Metropolitan’s Gerst Family Young Fathers Program. “[Young Fathers] is the only program that actually offers what these kids need.”
Metropolitan CEO, Ric Estrada, spoke about Communities Partnering 4 Peace and its efforts in violence prevention at Leadership Greater Chicago’s Cities Striving for Peace event.
A group of young artists from our DuPage Center’s Early Childhood Collaborative schools are now part of an art gallery, thanks to the DuPage Children’s Museum!
The Living Room, a safe, non-judgmental space at Metropolitan’s Southwest Chicago Center, provides a non-clinical alternative to the emergency room for guests experiencing a mental health crisis.
Welcome to Good News! In this space we feature positive stories of community impact and development, relevant to the areas Metropolitan serves or the programs we offer.
We’re refreshing the look of our North, Southeast Chicago, and Southwest Centers! First up: Metropolitan Family Services North.
Kyle Harvey, Broker Associate at Baird & Warner, currently serves as Chair of the Legal Aid Society (LAS) Board of Directors. Read about Kyle’s work with LAS, in her own words.
Hundreds of our families across Chicagoland received holiday meals this season, thanks to the generosity of MillerCoors. Volunteers from MillerCoors and its partner organizations packed the food into bags to donate to families at our North, Calumet, and DuPage Centers.
Recently North Children’s Center and Midway Children’s Center hosted a Male Superhero photo shoot … and the response was amazing!
The spirit of the season was alive and well at our Midway Learning & Wellness Center’s Holiday Party, where children and families enjoyed games, food, and fun! Each child received their very own holiday gift, courtesy of Metropolitan board member Merle Cohen.
At our Midway Center’s Holiday Luncheon, staff came together with board members, community partners, and friends of the Center to celebrate the holidays and this year’s successes in empowering children and families.
The common denominator: father engagement across Metropolitan.
The DuPage Family Service League, a group of women whose support of our DuPage Center spans decades, hosted its annual “Jingle and Mingle” Holiday Dinner & Auction to benefit Metropolitan DuPage recently at the Red Oak Room at Cantigny Golf Club.
Our DuPage Community Board enjoyed a sweet evening out at Downtown Glen Ellyn’s Holiday Treats event in support of Metropolitan DuPage!
These members of our Calumet Center’s youth leadership program organized and distributed food recently as part of a partnership with Chicago Housing Authority, Urban Institute, and the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
At Metropolitan Southeast Chicago’s recent Holiday Luncheon, the Community Board gathered with staff and partners to celebrate the holidays and the contributions they have all made to make Metropolitan Southeast Chicago’s work possible.
Women Empowered for Civic Engagement honored Metropolitan Calumet Program Manager Jennifer McCraw at its recent Purple With A Passion Awards!
Congratulations to Lashyra, one of our Calumet Center’s Altgeld 10 youth leaders, who won the Shining Star Award at the Chicago Police Department’s first annual citywide youth ball!
For Giving Tuesday on November 27, we at Metropolitan gave thanks for the people who Mpower us. Supporters helped Mpower our Metropolitan family, giving more than $5,500 in honor of people and programs across the agency from staff to board members to Centers.
When asked the men in our Young Fathers program about their Halloween traditions with their kids, we heard a lot of “Halloween movies!” and “trick-or-treating!” but, given the work they’re doing to improve themselves and their relationships with their children, we also learned about some of the ways they’re being conscientious.
On October 31st, the Parents as Partners program had its bi-monthly Group Connection and made it a Halloween Party!
We’re pleased to hear from Yannely at our upcoming Equal Access to Justice Award Luncheon!
Our Calumet Center kicked off its Domestic Violence Awareness Week in Altgeld Gardens with a rally in support of domestic violence victims and survivors.
Welcome to Good News! In this space we feature positive stories of community impact and development, relevant to the areas Metropolitan serves or the programs we offer.
This October – Domestic Violence Awareness Month – Metropolitan staff and friends from our North Center community joined the Chicago Police Department’s 25th District and its Domestic Violence Subcommittee for a walk and rally in honor of lives lost in the area to domestic violence.
Truth, Racial Healing, and Transformation (TRHT) Greater Chicago, an initiative of Woods Fund Chicago, is a comprehensive, national and community-based process to “unearth and jettison the deeply held, and often unconscious, beliefs created by racism”.
The Metropolitan Southwest Community Integrated Living Arrangement (CILA) clients and staff had some luck of the Irish as they attended the farewell Southwest NAMI Fall Banquet on Friday, September 21st at the Elks Lodge in Oak Lawn.
It was a joyful yet tearful occasion for 007th District Police Station on the retirement of their beloved Commander Kenneth A. Johnson hanging up his badge after dedicating over 31 years of service to the Chicago Police Department.
Welcome to Good News! In this space we feature positive stories of community impact and development, relevant to the areas Metropolitan serves or the programs we offer.
Metropolitan Calumet’s Annual Meeting on Friday, September 14 celebrated the people who empower the Center, and by extension, the children and families we serve.
About 50 volunteers went door-to-door, speaking with people in more than 500 homes.
Rita Lopez Brosnan, Executive Director of Metropolitan DuPage, talks with Mayor Michael Gresk about our DuPage Center’s programs and community engagement on the City of Wheaton’s “Chat with the Mayor” series.
Our President and CEO Ric Estrada has been named by the Chicago Cubs as their 2018 Roberto Clemente Award winner!