GADS HILL CENTER
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Mission Statement
Gads Hill Center (GHC) was founded in 1898 as part of the Settlement House Movement, created in the Progressive Era by a visionary group of social workers whose vision was to change the approach of social work from charity to solidarity and to help recent immigrants integrate into their new, adoptive community. For 126 years, Gads Hill Center has been a beacon of hope for Chicago’s underserved and under resourced communities, working alongside immigrant families who have historically faced prejudice, bias, and injustice and continuously adapting our culturally- and linguistically-relevant programs to meet the needs of those we serve. At Gads Hill Center, our mission is to create opportunities for children and their families to build a better life through education, access to resources and community engagement. We passionately believe that all individuals, regardless of where they start, can achieve their full potential and that early childhood education childcare should be a universal right for all families.
About This Cause
Gads Hill Center empowers families to break the cycle of poverty by creating access to education and opportunities. Our programs are designed using a racial justice lens and we are committed to becoming a racial justice-informed organization, consistently working to ensure families have the knowledge and power to shape our institutions, democracy, and economy. We began this journey seven years ago by upgrading our mission to include community engagement as an organizational pillar. four years ago, we began developing the curriculum that will achieve this pillar and in January of 2020 we engaged Truth, Racial Healing & Transformation (TRHT), a comprehensive, national and community-based process to plan for and bring about transformational and sustainable change, to help us address the historic and contemporary effects of racism in our community and within our own organization. We now have trained racial healing facilitators on staff and the internal capacity to continue to scale this timely initiative across our programs, ultimately hoping to reach outside GHC to benefit the city, region, and country. Throughout our history, Gads Hill Center has adapted to Chicago’s changing demographics and modern needs and now serves primarily Latinx and African American low-income families through linguistically- and culturally-relevant services. We believe that our ability to communicate across cultural boundaries is directly related to the welfare of families and the community. Today, the families we serve face unprecedented challenges from a political climate that is increasingly hostile towards immigrant families, policymakers and legislators that deny the existence of structures that perpetuate inequity, oppression, the exploitation of People of Color, and a pandemic which has exacerbated the health and employment inequities on Chicago’s south and southwest sides. Gads Hill Center is uniquely positioned to respond to these challenges, and we build partnerships with families and the community to create change to meet each community’s needs. Through nationally recognized curricula, we provide early childhood education and youth programs centered around civic engagement, social emotional learning, and academic success. We leverage each program to deepen our impact by providing culturally and linguistically relevant comprehensive services and holistic family support. Today, our programs impact over 5,000 low-income children and families of color on Chicago’s south and southwest sides annually through early childhood education, youth services, trauma-informed mental health services, and holistic family support and community services. We address the most pressing needs in each community we serve to strengthen and create conditions that propel vulnerable children and their families to achieve success as individuals and as contributors to the larger community and society.