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Starting March 17th, all Chicago Public Schools will be closed until March 30th to protect the safety, health and well-being of students, staff and other student support services. As a result, all Urban Initiatives programming has been suspended until further notice as recommended by Chicago Public Schools. While we are saddened to be temporarily unable to continue supporting our student participants through the implementation of our programs, we fully support this decision, as the health and safety of our students, families, schools, neighbors and UI staff remain our highest priority.
Additionally, all Urban Initiatives events in March and April have been canceled to protect the health of our participants, staff and community members. We are encouraging our staff to practice social distancing and hope our community will join us in these preventative measures to the extent possible. At this time, we still anticipate hosting Urban Initiatives events in May and June, including the Work to Play Cup. However, we will continue to monitor this situation closely and stand ready to make any adjustments to our plans if necessary. We continue to follow the expertise and recommendations from the Center for Disease Control/Prevention (CDC), The World Health Organization (WHO), and the City of Chicago and will keep you informed if our plans change.
Thank you for your continued support of Urban Initiatives and, more importantly, our student participants. As always, but especially during these uncertain times, we are humbled by the strength and commitment of this community.
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If you or your family are experiencing a gap in essential services due to the closure of Chicago Public Schools, please reference the following resources.
- Your student(s) can receive meals through any CPS school, regardless of eligibility for the free/reduced lunch program. Food pickups will begin on Tuesday, March 17th between 9am-1pm. You will be able to pick up three days of breakfasts and lunches at a time and distribution will occur outside of the building.
- In response to Chicago schools closing, the Park District will provide enhanced programming at 18 designated parks. It is important to note, the District must limit capacity at each location to 50 in order to combat the community spread of COVID-19. See the map of parks and more info here.
- Resources to keep you and your family healthy can be found here.
If you would like to support the students, families and communities being impacted by coronavirus please consider supporting the following organizations: