Category Archive
Urban Initiatives’ programs focus on supporting youth in underserved communities. We reach entire school communities daily, through our Culture and Climate programs that strive to help schools value play and enrichment activities alongside classroom instruction. Through our Continuum of Programming, we reach students over many years and engage them in sports-based youth development programs from…
Urban Initiatives is excited to announce that our 2017-2018 data and evaluation results are complete and our programs have once again showed strong results in physical activity, academic success, and social emotional learning. Urban Initiatives is committed to being a proven organization that continually evaluates our programs to determine success and to make curriculum and…
Workforce development is critical to the success of our organization, our city, and our employees. Here’s how we are prioritizing the development of our staff.
During the 2017–2018 school year, Urban Initiatives made a commitment to prioritize our efforts to foster unity, as well as diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI). We believe these values are critical to our mission. Developing a plan and actions to be proactively an anti-oppressive and anti-racist institution is foundational in our work.
The World Cup is one of the clearest representations of the power of sport because of its international audience, its length and its worldwide appeal. Soccer is the most popular sport in the world, and the World Cup is its greatest stage. The World Cup has pulled communities like our office together as millions of…
The Quest Foundation has selected Urban Initiatives as a grant recipient for the 2017/2018 school year! Since 2014, the Quest Foundation has been a dedicated supporter of our Work to Play Program and we are happy to say that they will continue supporting Work to Play with a $45,000 grant!
Urban Initiatives is proud to announce that Coach Michelle Ramos, a School Based Program Coordinator, is helping lead the charge on a fundraising initiative at Ravenswood Elementary. Outside of her daily duties at Ravenswood Elementary, Michelle has been working with Friends of Ravenswood, FORS, to bring clean drinking water to students. In addition to the…
Urban Initiatives is proud to have hosted another successful Practitioners Summit this fall! Over 70 people from 15 Chicago organizations in the city came together to spend the day connecting with each other about their work with underserved kids around the city.
The UI team is growing! Meet Scott, the newest member of Team Urban Initiatives. Scott is the new Development Director and is looking forward to contributing to the growth and impact of Urban Initiatives. Welcome Scott to the team!
REC Coordinators are vital to Urban Initiatives’ mission of empowering Chicago’s youth to become agents of community change through academic success, healthy living, and leadership development. They drive systematic change by connecting stakeholders and strengthening the social fabric of the community. Meet Gaby, one of UI’s newest REC Coordinators!