According to a recent Chicago Tribune article, last year's high school class pushed Chicago's graduation rate to new highs, more than 17 percentage points higher than ten years ago, when only half of incoming freshmen went on to claim their diplomas. Through a team sponsorship with City Year Chicago, the Fire hope to play an instrumental role in continuing that positive trend.
As a part of a partnership announced last fall with City Year Chicago, the Fire are currently sponsoring 11 City Year corps members who will work full time at Carl Schurz High School, the third largest high school in Illinois. These Fire-sponsored City Year corp members provide full-time targeted intervention for those students at Schurz that are most at risk of dropping out.
On Monday, May 19, more than 30 members of Fire staff, including Fire owner Andrew Hauptman (a national trustee of City Year and co-founder and founding board chair of City Year Los Angeles), head coach and director of soccer Frank Yallop, assistant coach C.J. Brown and several players left Toyota Park to take part in a City Year day of service at Schurz. The afternoon was split between spending time in four different freshmen classrooms for a series of life mapping exercises, i.e., working directly with students on goal setting and planning for the future, before hitting the field for some five vs. five mini games with the Schurz boys and girls soccer teams.
Check out the recap video aboveand photo gallery below for select shots from the day. To learn more about City Year Chicago and how you can get involved, visit http://www.cityyear.org/chicago.
