Participatory Budget 10th Ward

Our COO, Keevan D., was proud to partner and work with the 10th ward Alderman Office of Susan Sadlowski Garza for the 2017 Participatory Budget as apart of the "Breathing New Life on Torrence Ave" committee. The results are in and we are proud to share this announcement: 

"The 10th Ward has successfully completed its second cycle of Participatory Budgeting. We have given community residents the opportunity to propose projects to be placed on a ballot, voted on, and then funded with one million dollars of our ‘Aldermanic Menu’ funding. Over the last six months community residents from all seven neighborhoods of the 10th Ward have met biweekly to plan capital improvement/ infrastructure projects.

Between November 13-22, 2017 constituents voted at multiple polling sites across the Ward and, for the first time, online. The results are as follows: 60% of our menu funding will be allocated to street resurfacing and sidewalks ($600,000), Breathing New Life on Torrence Ave (343 votes, $30,000), Light the Night (333 votes, $17,000), Baseball Field for George Washington High School (279 votes, $160,000), Exercise Stations along the Burnham Bike Path (217 votes, $85,000), and Commercial Ave Gateway Park (137 votes, $100,000). Implementation will begin in 2018. Congratulations 10th Ward and to our dedicated PB Community Representatives!"

The $30,000 going to the committee project "Breathing New Life on Torrence Ave" is a major win for GRACE and the South Deering community. South Deering has been a gang war zone for many years. There have been countless young Black and Latino men lost to gang violence. The "Breathing New Life on Torrence Ave" project will consist of us putting Trees 🌲 down Torrence Ave.

Trees are very important to our ecosystem and have ancient symbolic meaning. Trees symbolize a connection to our ancestors. A tree sprouts from a seed, grows and branches out, and then creates a new fruit that gives life to the next generation, to begin anew. Trees also symbolize permanence & longevity.

Upon announcement of the ballot results, Keevan D. stated, "If your from South Deering or the 10th Ward you'll know how deeply rooted our community residents are in this community. It is time to beautify South Deering and bring peace to an area that has been plagued by drugs, crime and gang violence for decades. It won't happen over night just like Trees 🌲 don't grow tall over night. It is a process and will take time but now is the time we start to "LIVE" in SouthDeering! I urge everybody to get involved with the alderman offices in their own communities. It's easy to sit around and complain about your areas problems, but to see a change calls for Action!" Our team at GRACE is looking forward to keeping everyone up to date with the development process #SayGrace ! 

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Habitat For Humanity Build

On Saturday, September 16th, 2017, our organization was proud to partner with Habitat For Humanity, AmeriCorps, and Hilti for a housing building project in the Chicago's West Pullman neighborhood. We were able to come together to work on the completion of 3 new houses being built from the ground up located in the 11900 block of South Union Avenue. Our team, featuring our CEO Justin Dailey and COO Keevan Dantzler, were on site for the duration of the day assisting in completion of wall paneling and nailing. Through hard work and team work we were able to complete a portion of the house building process and build strong relationships with all organizational volunteers and participants. We look forward to assisting in future projects!

Petition to Chicago Community Trust

We recently completed our grant proposal to the Chicago Community Trust in hopes of receiving funding to further our mission and initiatives. We have been working diligently to create partnerships throughout our services areas with organizations and residents. We still need the support of our online community. Please sign and read our petition  https://www.change.org/p/say-grace-for-south-deering . Thank you all so much for the support #SayGrace

Social Alchemy Collective Partnership

Great News!

Today our team at Grace Housing Complex solidified a strategic partnership with the Social Alchemy Collective organization. The Social Alchemy Collective is a nonprofit think tank and action team comprised of social alchemists who not only represent various sectors, interests, professions, ideologies, and aspirations, but who are also committed to using the nonprofit movement to facilitate social change and the holistic development of humanity. Through the process of our work, we hope to start a movement which contributes to a revolution of society, relationships, thoughts and existence.  We plan to come together to implement The Magic of Mastery curriculum, that was developed by the organization, within the South Deering community. The Magic of Mastery curriculum focuses on using mind/body practices, community workshops, training, and personal coaching to improve mastery motivation and facilitate the development of self-care, self help, and self sufficiency, for low income residents. We are planning on developing many strategies and programs with the Social Alchemy Collective organization to further our mission and implement programming within our service areas. We are seeking to partner with many other organizations throughout the city in order to be more able to effectively engage the community and its residents.

To learn more about SAC please visit http://socialalchemycollective.org/index.php