Gads Hill Center

Gads Hill Center

File:GadsHillCenter.jpg
Formation	1898
Typ	Youth organization
Legal status	Non-profit organization
Hauptsitz	Chicago, Illinois
Standort	1919 W. Cullerton Street, Chicago, IL
Region served	Chicago, Illinois
CEO	Barbara Castellán
Staff	68 in 2010
Volunteers	324 in 2010
Website	http://www.gadshillcenter.org

Gads Hill Center, founded in 1898, is a Chicago-based community organization whose mission is to partner with the community in order to "develop the assets of children, youth, adults, and families." With its headquarters in Chicago, Gads Hill Center serves families in the Chicago neighborhoods of Lower West Side (Pilsen), North Lawndale and South Lawndale (Little Village) with programming that provides learning support and educational enrichment, early childhood development, and out-of-school care for children.

History

In the spring of 1898, Gads Hill Social Settlement opened its doors in a former saloon in Pilsen near what is now Damen Avenue and 22nd Street. Leila Martin, a founder and the first director, was a recent widow at age 26. She had experienced hardship but also had a vision of a better world. With only limited resources and an abiding passion, she inspired many others to join her. Gads Hill soon became a settlement house dedicated to improving the entire community.

As the Twentieth Century began, Gads Hill’s Lower West Side community was populated, as it is now, by recent immigrants. Then they were Poles, Czechs, Italians, Germans and other ethnic groups, who packed up meager belongings and journeyed thousands of miles to make a new life. Once in Chicago, they faced lives of hardship and deprivation. Their backbreaking labor in factories, stockyards, and construction sites fueled the city’s growth, its grand buildings and successful companies. But they came home to dark, crowded tenements. Their children went without food, without education, spending many hours in the gritty streets.

Gads Hill offered a place where families could be safe and unified, children could grow healthy and strong, and parents could build for the future. Soon after opening its doors, Gads Hill offered kindergarten, singing groups, cooking classes, a savings bank with 350 depositors, sewing clubs, and a range of activities for school-age boys and girls.

Over the years, the Lower West Side community continued to evolve as new groups came seeking opportunity. The Lower West Side, particularly the Pilsen neighborhood, is now a center of Latino culture in Chicago. More than 87% of residents are of Latin American origin, predominantly Mexican. As the community changed, Gads Hill Center stood firm in its commitment to serve children and families in greatest need.

At the turn of the twenty-first century, Gads Hill Center expanded services to other communities in need. In 2002, the Gads Hill Child Care Center opened its doors to serve the families of Chicago’s North Lawndale neighborhood; offering a tradition of hope and help to a new community of families.

Programs

Gads Hill Center's programs support and empower the economically and educationally disadvantaged residents in Chicago's Pilsen, Little Village, Back of the Yards, and North Lawndale neighborhoods. Each of these communities lacks resources in education, accessible child and health care, literacy, and general safety.

More than 50 percent of the adults in the neighborhoods we serve have not completed high school; a third of local school students drop out; and students are failing to meet state achievement test standards. Gads Hill Center is dedicated to the issue of educational support and enrichment.

Children's Services

In 2002, Gads Hill Center opened the Child Development Center. It is situated in North Lawndale at the Center for Families and Neighbors of the Sinai Community Institute. The Center provides comprehensive pre-kindergarten services, Head Start, and child care services for 3-to 5-year-olds. Also at the Child Development Center is Club Learn, Gads Hill Center's after-school educational program for children in first through eighth grade. We provide family support service for all participants and consistently support parents in their role as their children's first teacher.

Teen Connection

Teen Connection is the first comprehensive college preparatory program for low- to average-achieving teenagers in the Pilsen community. This intensive program helps more teens focus on developing the skills and finding the resources needed for successfully graduating from high school, navigating the college admissions process, and transitioning into college.

With strong peer support and mentorship, Teen Connection has helped more than 60 teens, who will be the first in their families to attend and graduate from college, achieve their academic goals and resist external pressures, such as gang recruitment. Students in the Teen Connection program are respectfully referred to as Fellows. Fellows are challenged by Gads Hill Center staff and volunteers to beat the odds against their success.

Club Learn

In the communities served by Gads Hill Center, parents and children observe gang wars and open drug trafficking. Many experience violence firsthand, and those as young as eight are targeted for gang recruitment. Club Learn provides a nurturing, educational, and safe environment where kids can come after school.

Club Learn is a comprehensive child development program. We serve at-risk six- to twelve-year-olds by providing an array of services that guide them away from gangs, delinquency, and drugs. Club Learn's structured, consistent activities are designed to help kids become active, engaged, and productive young adults.

In addition, Club Learn emphasizes technology skills by providing computer labs and computer instruction. Typically, kids involved in Club Learn don't have computers at home, and this exposure is essential to improve through familiarity, thus boosting academic and employment skills.

We also partner with local and national organizations; collaborating on the best ways to help our families break the barriers to success.

New Horizons

New Horizons is a mentoring program aimed to provide positive role models to middle school students in the Pilsen community. Pilsen ranks second among Chicago’s neighborhoods for the percentage of adults (56%) without a high school degree, and nearly one of out of three students in Pilsen drops out of high school. Also, gang presence in the area exposes students to violence on a regular basis.

New Horizons is an early intervention program that serves at-risk middle school students. With the support of a mentor, every student is exposed to a variety of new and exciting experiences that challenge and engage the student in academic and social activities. By establishing one-on-one relationships, mentors will be able to support the student on their journey to high school, ready to perform at his/her best.

Adult & Community

Gads Hill Center offers our neighborhoods with a place to learn, grow, and find community. We actively seek opportunities to enrich the families in our community and provide programming resources as well as our facilities to groups.

Awards and Recognition

Recent awards

The following is a list of the major awards given to Gads Hill Center during the 21st century. The list was gathered from the Awards section of their latest published agency one-sheet.

• 2009: Gads Hill Center was chosen by the nationally-renowned Wallace Foundation as one of 14 organizations to participate in a four-year national pilot project to strengthen the financial management capacities of out-of-school-time providers.
• 2007: The United Way of Metropolitan Chicago recognizes Club Learn with a three-year commitment to significant funding.
• 2006: Club Learn is recognized by CYS/CDBG as Region 3 Youth Net’s 1st place out-of-school time program.
• 2005: We received the Alford-Axelson Award for Nonprofit Managerial Excellence from North Park University’s Axelson Center.
• 2004: CEO Barbara Castellán received North Lawndale Employment Network’s 2004 Creating a Community That Works Award because of her “extraordinary contributions to advancing the economic stability of the residents of the community, commitment to excellence, and providing high quality service with the greatest respect to humanity.”
• 2004: CEO Barbara Castellán received Mujeres Latinas en Acción’s Maria ‘Maruca’ Martinez Community Service Award for her work in the community and at Gads Hill Center.
• 2002: We won the National Association for Chicana and Chicano Studies Community Award.
• 2001: We received the prestigious BP Leader Award for work in collaboration with the Chicago Department of Environment to provide environmental education and a “green” setting for the Gads Hill community.

See also

• GADS HILL CENTER - Home