Big Shoulders Fund Leaps into Action to Help Families During the COVID-19 Crisis

These are unprecedented times that have forced us all to quickly shift and adapt the way we operate, and embrace a new normal. While this has certainly presented challenges, I continue to find hope in the everyday actions of people working to support one another and make it through this together.

This spirit has certainly come to life at Big Shoulders Fund. Teachers and principals are going above and beyond to meet the needs of 26,000 students. Our dedicated and loyal supporters have risen to the challenge and doubled down on ensuring our mission continues to be carried out. The Big Shoulders Fund team continues to think and act creatively when implementing programs and providing much needed support to schools.

While everyone has been impacted in some way, shape, or form, we’re especially aware of the impact this crisis has had on families. Many have been hit hard by unforeseen changes in how they live, and are grappling with reduced hours or layoffs at work as a result of the economic impact of the crisis.

Big Shoulders Fund is proud to work with a network of schools that is rising to the challenge and continuing to provide resources and relief for these families, while still providing a quality values-based education to its students at a distance. The Big Shoulders Fund Meal Distribution Program is a great example of this. This program, with support from the Lavin Family Foundation, partners a Big Shoulders Fund school and local restaurant to provide meals for needy families. These stories on NPR and The Jam do a great job highlighting two of our 15 school/local restaurant partnerships. Other longstanding partners like Home Run Inn have also joined this program, delivering 4,000 pizzas to 20 schools. In total, more than 10,000 meals have been provided since the start of the program just a few weeks ago. 

We’re also proud to see students stepping up and giving back to their communities and helping their classmates in this time of need. St. Thomas the Apostle seventh grader, Darius Mason, has sewn 400 masks to help essential workers and frontline responders combating COVID-19. He even got a shoutout on Twitter from Mayor Lightfoot. Loren Danyale, also a student at St. Thomas the Apostle, was recently featured on ABC 7 Chicago for the fun PSA videos discussing the importance of social distancing that she put together with her mom.

As we continue to navigate the ever-evolving state of affairs in our country and world-wide, our team is also working tirelessly to support educators and school families, who need help more than ever. Shortly after schools were closed, Big Shoulders Fund launched a distance learning support website with resources for families to not only help them during the transition to learning outside of a traditional classroom setting, but also to offer ways for them to stay connected and healthy while at home. Additionally, we now have a standing schedule of weekly webinars designed to support educators and respond to the topics that they identify needing help with. From sharing resources to aiding teachers with distance learning to helping administrators develop an operational strategy, we are working together with these champions of our mission to ensure a quality, values-based education can continue to guide the next generation into the future.

We’ve also launched e-volunteering to further support our network of schools and students during this time. Goals of our e-volunteering initiative include uploading volunteer reading videos each week, creating cards and/or pen pal letters for students and teachers, with a particular focus on graduating eighth and 12th graders, and crafting fleece tie blankets for scholars headed off to college. 

Recognizing the wide variety of needs across our network of schools, Big Shoulders Fund has established a COVID-19 Emergency Fund to help ensure our students continue to have food and opportunities to learn and thrive, and to help our schools operate in this new reality. The Emergency Fund is assisting with food distribution, e-learning programs, and scholarships for families that may be impacted by a job loss. Our goal is to raise at least $3M. We are so grateful to those who have already answered this call to action by pledging more than $700,000.

We will continue to add resources and expand our support in the weeks ahead as the situation evolves. We’re incredibly grateful to our entire network for their continued partnership. We know that through a collective effort, we will continue to fulfill our mission of supporting schools, students, and families and help to create an even stronger community.

Thank you to all of our students and families for their tremendous flexibility and resilience during this transition, and to the administrators, teachers, and Big Shoulders Fund team and supporters for your unwavering support and commitment to providing quality, values-based education to Chicago’s children at all times.

Please stay safe and continue to take care of each other.