LIFT

LIFT-Chicago and LIFT-Evanston are proud to welcome Matt Forrest, Amber Berkins, Kristen Gietzen, and Allison Rosen as their newest Site Coordinators. Forrest will serve in LIFT-Chicago's Uptown Office, while Berkins will serve in LIFT-Chicago's newest site, the Pilsen Office, and Gietzen and Rosen will serve with LIFT-Evanston.

Starting in June, local service center LIFT-Evanston will begin work to create an online housing database to help more Evanston residents secure affordable housing.  Evanston Community Foundation will provide financial support to LIFT-Evanston to hire two full-time Summer Fellows dedicated to leading the project.

Kate Ninno and Le'Vern Russell, both case managers at Near West Side Community Development Corporation in Chicago, visited LIFT-Evanston's February Ongoing Training to speak about their experiences in fighting inequality in the Chicago region.

On January 12, 2010 a catastrophic 7.0 magnitude earthquake violently shook the island of Haiti, displacing as many as one million people and leaving severe damage in its wake.  Its effects were felt around the world, and both communities and countries came together to offer their aid and support.  In Evanston, a partnership between student organizations at Northwestern University and the Haitian community in Evanston has been formed with the help of the Center for Civic Engagement and School of Education and Social Policy professor Dan Lewis.

LIFT-Evanston student advocates reached out to to this collaborative to offer services to displaced Haitians and their families, and after meeting with Alderman Lionel Jean Baptiste (executive committee chariperson of the Haitian Congress to Fortify Haiti), Professor Lewis, and other members of the Northwestern community, the office is preparing how to best serve Haitian immigrants.

LIFT-Chicago will serve hundreds of additional Chicago individuals and families in 2010 with its recent expansion into the West Side of the city.  LIFT-Chicago, Pilsen opened its doors at the close of February and is currently providing free social services to West Side residents.

LIFT-Chicago, Pilsen will operate out of the new Chicago Workforce Center and work with several city and state agencies in the center to serve individuals and families in need.

At the close of 2009, LIFT was selected to be the recipient of funding from Fannie Mae's employee giving program to support its work addressing homelessness and poverty in the Chicago region.

LIFT-Evanston will provide free tax preparation services beginning February 1, 2010, where trained LIFT volunteers will be available to help Evanston community prepare tax returns electronically and identify their eligibility for tax credits.

In a press release from the Chicago Mayor's Office, Mayor Daley noted the importance of workforce training and development programs like LIFT-Chicago as crucial to the economic future of the city of Chicago. His remarks came at the opening of the new Chicago Workforce Center.

LIFT-Evanston was recently awarded a root2fruit grant from the Evanston Community Foundation.  The grant will support in part LIFT’s move to bigger office space to meet the client and volunteer demand in Evanston.  With this new space comes increased potential for LIFT-Evanston to strengthen its impact in the community in a number of ways, including more client meetings and extended VITA tax site hours for working families.