Community Outreach

Cristo Rey Jesuit High School works to provide the residents of Chicago’s Pilsen/Little Village neighborhood with a brighter future through education and thus enhance their quality of life.  Our growth and development over the years has consistently led us to consider additional ways we can reach out to the larger community and invite the community into the school. Our Community Engagement Program not only links Cristo Rey with community organizations that provide social services to our families, but also provides in-house expertise in the areas of health, mental health, and social services. 

The Community Engagement Program yields positive results as it increases participation by students, parents and teachers in fostering the academic and social success of students, removes social-service and health-related barriers that keep students from doing their best work, and increases access to programs and services provided by community agencies at the school.

Highlights of the Community Engagement Program include:

• Cristo Rey’s full-time nurse practitioner, Nurse Molly Grant, organizes two community Health Fairs for Pilsen/Little Village residents.  Over 600 people receive much needed services including influenza and pneumococcal vaccinations, screening for hypertension, elevated blood glucose levels, breast cancer, asthma, cholesterol, and vision problems, and enrollment in the All Kids Program.
  
  
• Cristo Rey’s Library is in its first year, serving current students and alumni with a full time bilingual librarian, Diane Madrid-Limon.  The library is open Monday thru Saturdays and includes over 4,000 volumes of book and 19 computer work stations.  In the summer of 2007 the library will expanding and opening it doors to the community.
  
  
• Cristo Rey offers parent education classes, or Escuela Para Padres, for parents of Cristo Rey students.  These classes meet monthly and cover topics ranging from how to help students form good study skills to improving communication within families.
  
  
• Cristo Rey collaborates with Poder Learning Center (http://poderlc.org/) to offer English as a Second Language (ESL) and computer classes on-site at the Cristo Rey campus Monday through Thursday.
  
  
• Community organizations use our facilities to offer a variety of services to the community – organizations include: the Resurrection Project, FUERZA, Whittier Elementary School, Asthma Mobile Care, Pilsen Mental Health, San Jose Obrero Mission, the Young Hispanic Lawyer’s Association, and St. Pius.

The Community Engagement Program is critical to the success of our mission.  Our students’ academic performance continues to improve, we are enrolling increasing number of students and expect to have a waiting list again this year, and students, parents, and the larger school community consistently utilize these services and partnerships.