Tamika Carlton - Howard and Evanston Community Center

Parent perspective: Reyna says “I am grateful not only as a mother but as a former student”!

My name is Reyna Terrell and I am a parent of a child transitioning to kindergarten from HECC's Sheila Reynolds Berner Family Center. After five and a half years of being in the program, my daughter and I are leaving the Family Center with so much gratitude and appreciation towards every person we have come across. My daughter started at the Family Center when she was just 6 months old. I was a single mother who desperately wanted to go back to school. Just a few months after putting her into the program, I went back to school and started working as

Tamika Carlton2017-09-08T16:19:06-05:00September 8th, 2017|Children & Youth|

Susan, a refugee from the Congo, got her first job in the U.S.!

Susan is a refugee from the Democratic Republic of the Congo. Like thousands before her, she fled the Second Congo War, a civil war that raged from 1998 until 2003. She was forced to abandon many family members and her livelihood, a prosperous corn and bean farm. Susan fled with her husband to a refugee camp in Uganda, one of four host countries for refugees, including Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania. In Uganda, DRC refugees receive food aid and were able to work. But Susan said that the refugee settlement was a still a hard place to live and raise children. It

Tamika Carlton2018-04-06T13:34:35-05:00August 16th, 2017|Adults & Families|

Parent Perspective: Sisters who had children as teens found a home at the Family Center

Genesis, 20, and Michele, 22, are sisters who grew up in Howard and Evanston Community Center programs. Their lives were filled with with homework help, field trips, summer camp, and more from birth through teenage years. Even their mother worked in the kitchen at the Family Center and volunteered throughout HACC. However, their lives changed dramatically after both Genesis and Michele gave birth to their own children before finishing high school at 16 and 17 years old, respectively. But HECC was there as a safety net. They enrolled their infant children, Sherlyn (now three years old) and Laylah (now four years old), in the

Tamika Carlton2018-04-06T13:35:39-05:00July 17th, 2017|Adults & Families, Children & Youth|

Letter from the ED- demand a fully-funded IL budget TODAY!

BUDGET CRISIS UPDATE: HECC fam– take action TODAY! Tomorrow is the last day of the special General Assembly session and fiscal year. If a budget doesn't pass, it will be our 3RD YEAR without a full budget. ESL students would lose classes, domestic violence survivors would lose life-saving support, youth will lose the safety of school programs, parents will be left without affordable childcare...the list goes on. Call today and demand that Gov. Rauner and the General Assembly pass the budget! Get inspiration for your calls by reading HECC executive director's letter below! Here is a link to a pdf of

Tamika Carlton2017-06-29T12:31:27-05:00June 29th, 2017|Uncategorized|

You’re invited! Come celebrate HECC’s 50th Anniversary!

It's HECC's 50th anniversary– so let's celebrate! You're invited to the 50th Anniversary celebration this October! You have helped Rogers Park adults, families, children, and youth build better futures for themselves– earning GEDs, learning English, getting a job after incarceration, raising healthy children, and so much more. Let's honor the donors, participants, and staff that have offered a helping hand to the Rogers Park community for over five decades! For an electronic version of the save the date, click here and share with your friends and family! For a little HECC history, check out this blog post! More information about

Tamika Carlton2017-06-27T16:24:55-05:00June 27th, 2017|Uncategorized|

VIDEOS: ESL students share stories from their lives!

This class session, students in Howard and Evanston Community Center's ESL 5 class participated in a transformative collaboration between HECC and the Community Writing Project. Students wrote personal stories in English and shared them with their classmates– not only enhancing their English writing and speaking skills but creating bonds between students from different backgrounds and empowering themselves. The stories and lives of low-income adults, refugees, and immigrants matter and we all need to hear them! Give their stories a listen below, and read them in the Community Writing Project's publication real conditions. Share with family and friends today! Jessica (Republic

Tamika Carlton2018-04-06T13:37:49-05:00June 26th, 2017|Adults & Families|

Parent perspective: Affordable pre-k means everything to a single mother

Jeannifer is a parent of a child, Sophia, at HECC's Birth to Five Early Childhood Education Program at the Sheila Reynolds Berner Family Center in Rogers Park. The Family Center provides a high-quality, affordable early childhood education for 116 children ages 0-5 years old in a full-day program. Hear from Jeannifer herself about how important this Head Start program has been for her family! I’m a Guatemalan immigrant, and moved to Chicago in 1993. I have been living in Chicago for 24 years. I came when I was 16 years old and cared for my three younger brothers while my parents worked

Tamika Carlton2018-04-06T13:37:25-05:00June 20th, 2017|Adults & Families, Children & Youth|

Armstrong El adult ed partnership helps moms be students

This year, HECC partnered with George Armstrong Elementary School in West Rogers Park to host a GED class. More space means another free class, and the students, who are majority mothers, have the childcare for elementary aged children while they study. “Partnering with neighborhood schools is a natural way to extend our mission of building self-efficacy through education into the community,” said Moon Parker, Adult Education Coordinator, and "As educators, we know that the greatest factor of children's success are their parents." Fatima (above) is a mother and student in the class. She came to the U.S. from Morocco in

Tamika Carlton2018-04-06T13:36:14-05:00June 5th, 2017|Adults & Families, Children & Youth|

Howard Area youth rocked Midwest video game competition!

Teenagers are wasting all of their time playing video games! This is the tired refrain of adults around the world. Well, according to a Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health study, this couldn't be farther from the truth. In 2016, researchers collected and analyzed data from thousands of children between six and 11 years old who played video games. They studied the association between time spent playing games and the children's mental health and cognitive and social skills. Playing video games could even make you smarter. Researchers found that playing video games can have very positive effects on children.

Tamika Carlton2021-03-29T10:00:24-05:00May 30th, 2017|Children & Youth|

Youth empowerment is a global issue, HECC went to Jamaica to learn more

Nathaniel Viets-Vanlear is HACC’s Career Readiness Program Coordinator. He helps young people find work and connect youth to the services they need to thrive. Recently, he went to Jamaica to further his learning as a youth worker and came away with a global view of what youth in low-income communities face every day. Greetings HECC family, Now that I’m settled back at the Youth Center, I wanted to share with the HECC family an amazing opportunity I had to travel abroad to engage with young people, and the agencies that serve them, in the Gregory Park, a low-income town

Tamika Carlton2017-06-19T19:50:37-05:00May 22nd, 2017|Children & Youth|

tcarlton

About Tamika Carlton