• Center for Life and Learning
• Tutoring
• Urban Farm
• Elam Davies Social Service Center
• Center for Whole Health
• Summer Day
• Literacy and Arts at Near North Magnet Cluster Schools
• Free Write Jail Arts and Literacy at Nancy B. Jefferson School

Today, Chicago Lights has served more than 50,000 people since the inception of our first program, Tutoring, in 1964 and annually serves 7,000 individuals of all races, ethnic backgrounds and religious traditions. We empower individuals from first-graders to eighty-year olds by fostering education and literacy, advancing health and wellness, and alleviating hunger and homelessness.

Historical Commitment to Education and Literacy
Chicago Lights' commitment to education is part of our heritage, dating to the establishment of the Tutoring Program in 1964. Steeped in a deep commitment to education and social justice, inherent in the Presbyterian denomination's legacy of establishing colleges, universities and standing with people often disinherited by society, a small group of Fourth Presbyterian Church members headed to Cabrini-Green to offer tutoring to children in the newly established "projects." Today, the commitment to education and literacy lives on, and is greatly expanded.

Historical Efforts to Alleviate Hunger and Homelessness
Chicago Lights has been addressing the issues of homelessness and hunger since the establishment of "the Door" in 1984. It began by feeding people who were literally eating out of garbage cans, according to Mrs. Grace Davies, widow of Dr. Elam Davies, the name sake of the Elam Davies Social Service Center (EDSSC).
In the late 1980s, the Elam Davies Social Service Center started serving Sunday Night Supper weekly to more than 100 people at risk for homelessness, providing a model for a Monday and Friday dinner at Catholic Charities, begun by Fourth Church Deacons in 2002 and 2007.

Over the years, the Social Service Center has become an award-winning program focused not only on distributing bag lunches and serving dinner, but also operating housing seminars, collaborating with other agencies on employment training and health services and serving as a learning institution for area colleges and universities.

A second hallmark program to alleviate childhood hunger was initiated in 1993, in collaboration with America's Second Harvest, now Feeding America, and the Greater Chicago Food Depository. From that point on, Chicago Lights continues to alleviate hunger by serving breakfasts, lunches and dinners to Chicago Lights Summer Day
and Tutoring program students.

Historical Commitment to Promoting Health and Wellness
Chicago Lights' commitment to health and wellness dates to the establishment of a Parish Nursing program. When a Health Ministry was later instituted, services to the congregation and the community were expanded to include screenings, immunizations and health and wellness education, including mental health.

With the inception of Chicago Lights, the Health Ministry became the Center for Whole Health, broadening its reach into the community through community fairs, school and intergenerational projects and new initiatives like the Healthy Heart for Women Project and a Brain Health education series.

Chicago Lights affirms the worth of all. We strive to be a place where the mind, body and spirit are strengthened and nurtured.
advance health and wellness,