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Hoping, healing and growing together
I am writing this letter to say thank you so much for the generous donation we received as part of the Help Them To Hope grant. This grant is very important to us at this time as we continue to help our students regain the educational losses in math and reading that they incurred due to the pandemic. We are so grateful for your support, and our students will benefit from it as well. Together we are all hoping, healing and growing together.
We continue to serve children and families on the Southeast Side of Waukegan, where the need continues to be so great. In 2021, even through the pandemic, we were able to provide over 700 program hours to over 100 students. We created a program called Summer Surge, which focused on literacy, math and STEM projects. As a result of this program, more than 80% of our students improved a full grade in math, and over 50% improved at least one grade level in reading.
As we believe that you cannot learn if you are hungry, we are very happy to say that we were able to deliver over 40,000 pounds of food to over 90 families during our weekly food distributions. Additionally we provided seven weeks of free lunches to our students during programming.
We were also able to start a Community Garden, with over 15 beds so our families could grow their own food. Through their hard work all summer, our families had an abundant supply of fresh produce which included tomatoes, lettuce, tomatillos, green peppers, zucchini and eggplant. This is incredibly important as most of our families cannot afford to purchase these critical vegetables.
This is all made possible due to programs like the Help Them To Hope grant, which allows us to work together within our community as a family — with relationships built on trust, respect and friendship. We believe in the power of neighbors helping neighbors, and the Help Them To Hope grant is such an important part of making that happen.
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Thank you for joining the Beacon Place Community on this journey forward, as we continue to hope, heal and grow together.
Barbara LaFasto, interim executive director, Beacon Place