OUTREACH - ASSISTANCE TO THE MATERIALLY POOR: KELLY HALL

Kelly Hall operates as a partnership between the Archdiocese of Chicago (through the Mission), Metro Chicago YMCA and the Greater Chicago Food Depository. The YMCA provides the day to day programming and associated staff, the Food Depository provides the food for the kids’ snacks, daily dinners, and the food pantries, and the Mission runs the mobile food pantry, senior citizens' program, and provides guidance and oversight for the kids' programming.

The Kelly Hall afterschool program and associated youth programming is the day to day focus of Kelly Hall. Hundreds of youth and teens participate in a variety of afterschool, evening and summer programs each month. Programming includes daily tutoring, daily silent reading time, daily computer time/ classes, daily healthy dinner, supervised and safe play areas, sports teams (multi time 8th grade city basketball champs!), summer day camp, and special events. The kids and teens in the neighborhood know that Kelly Hall is a safe place they can go to play and be involved with fun, positive activities.

Since the afterschool program began in 2009, the average grades of the kids involved has gone from Ds and Fs to As and Bs. This is remarkable in a neighborhood with a 67% high school dropout rate.

As discussed on the volunteer page, we are in process of re-starting much of our tutoring and mentoring program after the pandemic. Please email Sr. Stephanie at olamission@gmail.com if you’d like to be updated when our tutoring and mentoring program is taking new volunteers. The plan is to be ready for a full-scale tutoring/ mentoring program in time for the 2023-2024 school year.