When Sharon Hefferan, who runs a program called Metro achievement Center, called recently and said, "Come see what we do," I hesitated. There are 10,000 good programs for the needy in the naked city, and even a good do-good program isn't necessarily a good story. So I compromised. I'd come see but wouldn't write anything. Then I saw the girls. Actually, you don't so much see the girls as feel them here in this bright former ceiling tile warehouse in the West Loop, where five full days a week in the summer; 300 girls burst in from such turbulent Chicago neighborhoods as Pilsen, Lawndale, Little Village and Cabrini-Green. Waves of girl energy ripple through the cozy halls, in and out of airy classrooms, energy that manifests almost as visibly as neon. This isn't school, it's a sorority of girls studying their way up in the world.
CHICAGO-Chicago's Midtown Educational Foundation was honored to be one of 50 model programs chosen from across the country to participate in the President's Summit for America's Future. The foundation operates after-school programs for inner-city kids-programs that are built-on the generous and enthusiastic work of more than 500 volunteers.
The distinguished educator Mortimer Adler, Who taught the great ideas to university intellectuals here and to business executives in Aspen, said that his most satisfying experience was thrashing out Aristotle's basics to inner-city minority kids. That's because they came out swinging with a vigor that entranced this great philosopher. I must say I doubted Adler until this week. That's when I began teaching politics and journalism in summer school to mostly Hispanic teenage boys sponsored by the Midtown Educational Foundation. Compared to them, the seminars at Harvard, the Wharton school and Oxford, et al., including Northwestern, DePaul, Loyola and Roosevelt universities, never had the same zing.
“Be a leader, not a follower. That’s what my mom used to tell me back when I was a kid growing up in the Tri-Taylor/North Lawndale neighborhood. My family was very protective of me and Midtown kept me out of trouble also.
“Once I was talking with a group of guys in the program about colleges. I hadn’t thought much about college yet and one of the older guys mentioned Benedictine University. I said I had never even heard of the place. One advisor told me, ‘Hey, it doesn’t matter if you never heard of it. It might be a great place for you.’ And years later, he was right. That’s where I went for my undergraduate degree. “Midtown gives kids a chance to see what’s out there in the world.”
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A Chance to See What’s Out There