Julian HS Student Recognized by Obama for Service - Featured in Essence Magazine

Shantell Steve, a student at Julian, was highlighted in President Obama’s address to schools on September 8. She’s standing in front of our Summer of Service and Leadership banner for a photo that accompanies an “Essence” article. Shantell helped with the Summer of Service program this summer and is also a Harris Fellows student leader!

See the Essence article here! http://bit.ly/KKGDe

The MGR Foundation implemented the Service Experiences for Summer of Service & Leadership for Julian HS and seven other CPS high schools.

Getting Ready for a Little (g)love

As the temperature drops in Chicago, we are already seeing our patrons come into our food pantry and dignity diner with coats on. Which leads us to prepare for one of our major winter events: (g)love.

Preparations have well and begun and we're happy to report several bits of exciting news!

The Headwear Association, celebrating over 100 years of promoting hats and headwear awareness worldwide has pledged to donate hats to (g)love as part of their third annual Headwear for the Homeless holiday campaign. We are very excited to have their support and donation of headwear for the homeless of Chicago.

Additionally, CVS also has supported (g)love as they have pledged in-kind product through a gift card donation. We utilize CVS products such as hand sanitizer in every CarePack.

Our third bit of (g)love news for 2009/2010 season is that we have our first Handmade with (g)love hat. We have a goal this season of 200 handmade hats, and if you would like more information about handmade with (g)love, please click here.

While we hate to see summer go - we look forward to the start of (g)love and are thankful for the support and community engagement we've already seen preceding (g)love 2009/2010.

For more information about (g)love, visit http://careteam.mgrf.org/glove.html

(Not) Squishy Bananas

Apples and bananas filled the bags this morning at Traveling Food Circus! One of our younger volunteers spent much of his time sifting through bananas and strawberries taking out 'squishy' ones.

Because of the generous donations by both Whole Foods and Trader Joe's, all 35 families were able to take home meat, fresh vegetables, a variety of fruit and lots of bread. A few lucky dogs will even get some treats!

As always, the CareTeam owes a big thank you to our wonderful volunteers! It is because of their hard work and continued dedication that we are able to provide this food to local families. Join us next Monday! For more information or to sign up see our webpage at http://www.careteam.mgrf.org/.

Dignity Diner ART - Week 2

Dignity Diner is in the Holy Covent United Methodist Church every Tuesday night at 6PM and CareTeam provides arts programing for the patrons after the meal.

We busted out the artistic skills to create new projects for the patrons at Dignity Diner! Past weeks have included painting, drawing and 'stained' glass. We used wood framed glass panels and covered them with glue and tissue paper to create the effect of stained glass. Patrons loved that they could mix colors and papers to create a layered look!

Of course, some of our artists are naturals at painting and drawing. Last night, we worked self-portraits in the style of Picasso. After folding a sheet of paper in half and drawing on both halves it was great to see the two sides come together as one image!

We are looking forward to an art show in the middle of October! Other projects in the pipeline include multi-media night, poetry night and a much anticipated pottery night. Soon we will have a visiting photographer come and explain the basics and hopefully get us started on our 'A Day in the Life..." project.

Keep checking back for more updates and feel free to email us at careteam@mgrf.org or comment with suggestions, ideas or donation information!

Make 'n' Take Crafts@ DuSable Museum

This weekend the CareTeam had a glorious weekend in the sun at the DuSable Museum of African American History' 35th Annual Arts & Crafts Fair. The CareTeam runs the Make 'n' Take Booth and we were supported by some wonderful DuSable Museum volunteers. This year's theme was music although great food and fellowship were also mainstays of the day.

We spent the afternoon making bean tambourines, jingle bell bookmarks and decorating music notes. There were stickers, markers and other goodies to decorate the back of a paper plate which was folded in half, stapled and filled with beans when the artwork was completed. There were some wonderful budding artists who returned several times to use up their creative juices!

The bookmarks had either a guitar or a microphone and we asked the students to color or draw their favorite singer or music artist. It was wonderful to see students choose themselves as their favorite singer! We asked each student who visited our booth to sign (or color) a music note to add to our bar clef.

Thanks to DuSable Musuem for letting the CareTeam spend a wonderful weekend with them working on crafts with local youth!

Travelling Food Circus

We have a record number of 50 patrons this week at Travelling Food Circus!

Because we had large donations from both Trader Joe's and Whole Foods, we were able to ensure that everyone received TWO bags of healthful food. Some of the first patrons were even able to take home a bunch of flowers as well.

If you are interested in being a volunteer at Travelling Food Circus or any of our other CareTeam events, please check our website at http://careteam.mgrf.org/tfc.html

Kelvyn Park HS & Prosser HS @ Norwood Crossing

Today, I was lucky enough to spend the morning with the dynamic duo of Kelvyn Park HS and Prosser HS yet again. We went to Norwood Crossing, a senior housing facility that also supports independent seniors through a variety of services.

Because we had twenty kids, we were able to do a lot of impactful events in a combination of both direct and indirect service. Some students helped to organize the center's library sytem while others helped sort donations at the thirft store. A third group painted a chair for the regional network.

We were able to all come together for the second half of the morning to spend time with several seniors at a cook out! Not only were students able to prepare and serve food, but they were also able to spend some time with seniors from all over the Chicagoland area. It was great to see students and senior connecting through sports and holidays. The clowns that were also in the center and were quite entertaining!

Thanks to Bryan Manasse and Ryan Gauthier from Norwood Crossing for the wonderful morning!