Alumni Connections

Since 1965 when a few employees from the Montgomery Ward Corporation in Chicago began to go to a building in Cabrini Green once a week to tutor 2nd to 6th grade kids, more than 4,500 youth and a similar number of adults have been connected to each other by the tutoring/mentoring programs that were hosted at Wards until the company went out of business in 2000.

Cabrini Connections was started by seven volunteers from this original program, in the fall of 1992, to help youth finishing sixth grade from the original program have a support system to help them move from 7th grade through high school and into jobs and careers. More than 500 youth have been part of Cabrini Connections since then, with more than 1/3 being active for 3 or more years.

The founders has another goal in 1992. They wanted to help every poverty neighborhood have programs like Cabrini Connections. The created the Tutor/Mentor Connection to help make this happen.

Now we're connecting to many of these alumni on Facebook and with the help of Leo Hall, Tangela Smith Marlow and Tramaine Montel Ford, we've launched an Alumni Fund, so those who have been given much in the past can begin to give and help Cabrini Connections continue to support them, and youth still in K-12 grades.

We hope alumni, parents, former volunteers and friends will go to http://www.razoo.com/story/Cabrini-Connections-Alumni-Fund-2010-Campaign and add their donation. When you do that, post a comment showing what years you were involved, so others can see how the tutoring/mentoring program has connected so many people, for so many years.

Each June we host a year-end dinner where we celebrate the work done and point to the future. Money raised from the Alumni Fund and Dinner Donations, will help pay for the dinner, the summer 2010 activities, and the launch of programs in September.

If you're an alumni student or volunteer we encourage you to attend the dinner, and support this long-term program with a donation.