2022 Year-End Campaign

Raises More Than $60,000

Glen Crest students express their gratitude for our generous donors and volunteers!

Tremendous Thanks to All of Our Year-End Donors

With the generous support of the Glen Ellyn community, more than $60,000 was raised from individual donors this fall! We are grateful for our dedicated supporters and are excited to welcome our new donors to the GECRC community.

Looking ahead into 2023, GECRC is hopeful about the positive impact our academic support and new social emotional learning (SEL) focus has for students and their families. This fall, we were able to begin using the Character Effect curriculum to bolster our students' SEL opportunities. (Students are working on this curriculum in the adjacent photo.) Coupled with fun and engaging enrichment opportunities like visits from service dogs and special guest readers, GECRC seeks to provide a variety of opportunities to our students to engage the community, learn new skills, and enjoy new experiences!

Program Highlights

We are so thankful for all of our wonderful volunteers, community partners and board members who made our first Thanksgiving celebration since November 2019 possible! An extra special thank you to the Glen Ellyn Lions Club who not only donated delicious turkey legs to our feast, but also stayed to help serve food to our Churchill students and their families. A fun and festive time was had by all!!

In addition to their donations to our Churchill Thanksgiving celebration, the Glen Ellyn Lions Club also delivered pizzas to our Lincoln site and presented a $1250 check from a portion of the proceeds from their fundraising pasta dinner to GECRC. Thank you, Glen Ellyn Lions Club, for your incredible generosity!

Board Member Book Visit

GECRC board member Penny Linneweh continued with her monthly visits to Churchill with a stack of kindly donated copies of Adam Wallace and Andy Elkerton’s ‘How to Catch a Snowman’ from SCARCE. Penny read the book (a perfect choice for the winter season!) to the students, and was able to gift each one with their own copy. Thank you to SCARCE for the donation and to Penny for her time and generosity!

Service Dogs Visit

GECRC students were all giggles and smiles when two therapy dogs visited program. A miniature American Shepherd named Wyatt and his owner Julie Nelson visited the Lincoln students during outdoor recess, while a Collie named Charlotte and her owner Kathy Stodgell met the middle schoolers at Glen Crest.

Wyatt showed off a handful of tricks including riding a skateboard, playing “dead” and rolling over. Charlotte weaved her way between desks, receiving pets as students completed their homework. Both dogs were licensed by the Alliance of Therapy Dogs. A big thank you to Kathy and Julie for taking the time to share their amazing dogs with us!

A Day in the Life at GECRC

by Maryam Ghouse, Part 2

A Day in the Life at GECRC

by Maryam Ghouse, Part 3

Volunteer Coordinator Maryam Ghouse shows us a day in the life at GECRC

2021-2022 Annual Report

The GECRC 2021/22 Annual Report offers a reflection of how GECRC served students and families during the 21/22 academic year, which allowed for the return to in-person tutoring. Thank you for your continued support and partnership. Annual reports can be found on our website.

Volunteer Spotlight

Our November “Volunteers of the Month” are a mother-daughter duo who volunteer weekly at Churchill. Courtnay Roberts started volunteering in September 2021. She has a background in designing interactive educational curricula. Courtnay’s daughter Keira, a 7th grader at Hadley Junior High, started volunteering in April 2021. Keira, like her mom, is a musician and is a member of Hadley’s Lego Robotics team and enjoys theater, camping and science.

The duo works mostly with second, third and fourth graders.

“I love watching the kids light up when they do something on their own for the first time,” Courtnay says. “Seeing their confidence grow is definitely my favorite part!”

Keira agrees. “I love seeing how proud the kids feel when they try something hard and eventually figure it out,” she says.

Thank you, Courtnay and Keira, for sharing your time and talents with our students!

January is “National Mentoring Month,” and we are pleased to announce our January "Volunteer Tutor of the Month" is Douglas Maddox, a freshman at Wheaton College studying Secondary Education with History.

Douglas, from Maryland, began tutoring with GECRC at the beginning of the 2022-23 school year, working with a group of 6th - 8th graders at Glen Crest Middle School.

Douglas exemplifies what it is to be a mentor in his volunteer tutor role.

"I love to just listen to the students I tutor if they bring anything up and just hear them talk," Douglas says. "Sometimes, I get to provide advice if they need it. I want to be a voice of light and encouragement for each. Students need to know that life has so much, and there is a light at the end of the tunnel of middle school. I think it is so important to have people outside of the home with whom you can talk about things going on in life in a judgment-free environment."

Douglas says he wants to pursue a vocation in teaching in urban education to "further live out the idea of being a mentor to students who really need that voice in their lives."

Thank you, Douglas, for sharing your wonderful spirit with our students!!

Volunteers honored at Volapalooza

Congratulations to GECRC volunteers Terros Dilworth, Anne Bouchard and Sean O'Brien (not pictured) on being recognized by Giving DuPage at their annual Volapalooza, a celebration of volunteers! Our volunteer tutors are at the heart of what we do at GECRC, and we are so grateful for your time and service!

Events

Frosted in Fashion 2023

We are so grateful to the Glenbard West Fashion Club for donating the proceeds from their incredibly successful and annual “Frosted in Fashion” show Jan. 29 to GECRC! We also loved seeing one of our amazing volunteers walking the runway; Glenbard West senior Haydon Green is pictured in the red dress, center.

Congrats to all of the show models and organizers on such a wonderful event!

Blind Date with a Book

Here is a win-win situation for all of you book lovers! From now until March 1st, visit The Bookstore of Glen Ellyn and donate $10 to GECRC, and pick a “Blind Date with a Book” as a thank you. The Bookstore's booksellers have raided their own shelves for books to donate for these giveaways. You will be supporting GECRC AND you will receive a cool new read. Win-win!!

THANK YOU to the Bookstore of Glen Ellyn for hosting this creative fundraiser once again!

Reserve Your Tickets for the 2023 Literary Event!

We are thrilled to host the critically acclaimed author Mary Laura Philpott at the Glen Oak Country Club for an evening discussion of her newest work 'Bomb Shelter,' some refreshments and an opportunity to win several amazing raffle prizes!

Tickets are $75 in advance or $85 at the door and include light bites and two drinks.

Tickets can be purchased online now or in person at The Bookstore of Glen Ellyn, 475 N. Main St. The Bookstore will offer 25 percent off the purchase of 'Bomb Shelter' when bought in conjunction with a ticket to the event, so if you don't have a copy yet AND want to attend, this is a fantastic deal!

The annual literary event is held in partnership with The Bookstore of Glen Ellyn with support from generous long-time GECRC sponsors, Marcels, Marché and Maison.

All proceeds will benefit GECRC. Don't delay - reserve your tickets today!

Buy Tickets

Voting for the Glen Ellyn Community Awards recognizing the exceptional contributions of the Glen Ellyn community during 2022 is now open!

The Glen Ellyn Children's Resource Center was thrilled to be awarded Non-Profit of the Year for 2021, and would be even more delighted to win this award again for 2022!

Please vote; voting is open until February 10.

Community Partners and Awareness

GECRC is so grateful to the DuPage Foundation for the generous $25,000 grant from their JCS Fund.

"The mission of the JCS Arts, Health and Education Fund of DuPage Foundation (JCS Fund) is to support instrumental music, cultural, health, educational, artistic and other charitable organizations serving the needs of residents of DuPage County, Illinois," according to the Dupage Foundation.

Thank you so much to the DuPage Foundation!

GECRC Celebrates Native American Heritage Month

November was Native American Heritage Month. To celebrate this month by exploring the heritage, culture and experience of Indigenous peoples both historically and in American life today, our staff recommended some books for all ages to enjoy and appreciate. Here is a list of their recommended reads:

Elementary Age:

'Still This Love Goes On' by Buffy Sainte-Marie

'Wild Berries' by Julie Flett

'Fry Bread' by Kevin Noble Maillard

'Stolen Words' by Melanie Florence

'We Are Water Protectors' by Carole Lindstrom

Upper Elementary to Middle School Age:

'Native American Stories for Kids' by Tom Pecore Weso

'Rez Dogs' by Joseph Bruchac

'I Can Make This Promise' by Christine Day

'The Barren Grounds' by David A. Robertson

Young Adult:

'Firekeeper's Daughter' by Angeline Boulley

To purchase the above titles, please support our local bookstore and community supporter The Bookstore of Glen Ellyn or visit the Glen Ellyn Public Library to check them out.

Get Involved!

Visit our employment page to learn more about the summer instructor position.

Want to Give Back?

Our volunteer tutors are so invaluable to the mission of GECRC. Volunteering is a mutually beneficial experience where volunteers engage with students, staff and their fellow volunteers in meaningful and purpose-driven ways. Some really wonderful and long-lasting mentoring relationships develop between tutors and students!

If you or your high school student or perhaps even retired parents or neighbors would be interested in becoming a volunteer tutor, please complete a volunteer application to join us! If you've tutored in the past, please send an email to volunteer@gecrc.com. More Spanish speaking volunteers are specifically needed at the Churchill site.