Thank YOU!

The dust has settled from Meet Up and Eat Up and we wanted to thank the many people who helped make this great summer possible.  With their support, partnership, and promotion, we provided a summer camp alternative, including daily hands-on activities ,crafts, story times, and so much more.  Thanks to them we were able to give more than a lunch, but a safe place to play, laugh, and just be a kid.

 
To start, our amazing site partner, St. Catherine – St. Lucy Church and School provided the perfect space for this program.  Their gym (with attached kitchen!!) allowed our kids to play sports (basketball was a fan-favorite) and additional flex space allowed other kids to play board games, read, or do crafts.  Beyond the space, they helped promote the site, and were passionate supporters of this program.  Huge thanks to them!

This year we had an INCREDIBLE kick-off party, which jump-started , community awareness of our free-meal site.  Thanks to funding from Greater Chicago Food Depository for making that possible.   Thank you also to our many volunteers who helped staff activities, and to Oak Park Public Library, Infant Welfare Society’s Children’s Clinic, and Illinois State Rep Don Harmon for attending in support.

We received financial support of this program from the Women Leaders in Philanthropy, a giving group of the Oak Park- River Forest Community Foundation, and from Maximus Foundation and Jackson National Fund.  Thanks to them, we were able to hire an intern to oversee activities and meal distribution, promote the program, and purchase supplies to help make activities fun (including the fan-favorite, SLIME!!). 

While kids needed the meals, they came for the fun. Thank you to all our partners for making Meet Up & Eat Up a free camp alternative: Oak Park Library r brought their Book Bike every week and shared books with our kids. Forest Park Library came for weekly story-time, Wonder Works Children’s Museum held weekly hands-on activities, Park District of Oak Park  provided dance classes, and Sugar Beet Schoolhouse brought the Blender Bike to make smoothies.

Of course, our spectacular VOLUNTEERS deserve our biggest thanks.  They  helped with activities, engaged kids one-on-one, ran the check-in table, helped set-up and clean-up, and so much more.  Simply put, without dedicated volunteers Meet Up and Eat Up would not have been successful.  Thank you also to everyone who helped promote Meet Up & Eat Up in Facebook groups, online, in e-newsletters, and through casual conversations.