Holy Trinity expands service thanks to
community trust grant
By Miriam Cintron
From the moment students enter as freshmen, teachers and administrators at Holy Trinity High School, located at 1443 W. Division St. in West Town, know their academic strengths and weaknesses based on each student’s entrance exam scores.
Thanks to the Resource
Learning Center, which was created two years ago, the school has the
tools to help all students improve in their weakest subjects.Now, with a recent $65,300 grant, the center will increase the help it offers students by expanding its services and its after-school program. The grant came from a donor who contacted the Chicago Community Trust (CCT) with a desire to benefit math and science education at a Catholic school, explained Clint Mabie, CCT’s philanthropic services advisor. CCT then recommended four schools—including Holy Trinity—as candidates that met the donor’s requirements.
CCT has supported Holy Trinity’s learning center from its early days, according to Neil Ryan, the school’s director of grants and communications. CCT gave Holy Trinity a $30,000 grant during the first year the school expanded its tutoring center, which offered homework help, into the Resource Learning Center, which not only provides tutoring in a variety of subjects, but goes above and beyond to improve study, note-taking, critical thinking, and other skills in students with different learning styles.
“The trust will monitor the grant for the donor and provide ongoing progress reports to make sure the donation is having the greatest impact,” Mabie explained. The school already has made plans to use the funds in the most advantageous ways— rom providing the basics to teaching additional skills and subjects.
The grant money will “enable us to supply students with materials” such as binders and calculators, “things they don’t have or can’t acquire,” said Ivan Stephens, the center’s director. “So lack of supplies will not be an excuse for students” to avoid working toward improvement.
The grant also will provide equipment for building language skills and enable the center to hire a reading and language specialist.
Ryan said the center’s goal is to “continue the dialogue” and “incorporate everyone” by having tutors and teachers in constant contact to monitor progress and identify areas for improvement.
In the two years the center has been open, Stephens has seen significant improvement in its students.
He has seen teens who earned Ds and Fs become solid B students and even improve their social skills. Stephens also has witnessed shy students building self-esteem as they overcome insecurities about their limited skills. The center even has shed the stigma so many students used to feel about going to an after-school program for extra help.
The center is open to all students, and once they enter its doors they see that other students are there because they share the desire to improve their academic and social skills and are not ashamed to ask for help, Stephens explained. The center is open every day.
The after-school program is open three days a week, with help for students provided by volunteers from Wells Fargo Corporate Banking and the Big Shoulders Auxiliary Board. For information, call (773) 278- 4212.
