It All Began with Kids on the Couch: The Amazing Story of After School Matters
Please join us for a LIVE WEBINAR conversation with MARY ELLEN CARON, CEO of After School Matters. REGISTRATION REQUIRED.
After registration, a confirmation email will be sent with link to live presentation.
This is a FREE EVENT, HOWEVER during these uncertain times, your support is critical to the success of First Friday Club of Chicago.
To help cover the cost of live programming, please consider the following suggested donations for this Webinar: Non-Member: $20 | Member: $10
What to do with high schoolers when the school day is done? An upper-middle-class U.S. family can fork over thousands on travel sports, music lessons, drama club, you name it. But here in Chicago, internationally recognized After School Matters each year offers world-class, life-changing programs to tens of thousands of teens whose parents cannot afford a fancy price tag.
Join the First Friday Club as we welcome Mary Ellen Caron, CEO of After School Matters since 2012. We’ll hear how Chicago’s First Lady Maggie Daley dreamed up the program in 1991, with 260 kids making art in tents in the middle of the Loop. Since then it has exploded, last year offering 26,000 program opportunities to teens from under-resourced neighbor- hoods across the city.
While it began as an art program, ASM now includes offerings in sports, leadership, communications, culinary arts and STEM. Its teachers include the city’s own artists, architects, chefs, scientists, journalists, medical professionals, tech leaders, police officers, and the occasional Bulls player. And covid didn’t put a stop to any of this.
Dr. Caron, with her long history of service to Chicago, will also outline After School Matters' ambitious goals as the organization moves into its fourth decade. She will be accompanied by two alums of After School Matters, who will share how the program has made a difference in their lives.