The Chicago Area Alternative Education League (CAAEL) seeks to eliminate the athletic-and-activity gap facing at-risk/special education students who have been removed from mainstream schools for severe behavioral and emotional issues. Extracurricular activities encourage peer interaction, promote cooperation, build student-adult relationships and help strengthen the student-school connection. Students who participate in these activities achieve higher grade point averages, miss fewer days of school, and are more likely to graduate. Yet students sent to alternative schools due to behavioral and emotional issues—the very students who need these activities the most—lose access to these vital programs. CAAEL fills this gap for these challenging and often forgotten students, while providing educators a powerful set of tools to instill hope and change lives. Each year, CAAEL offers more than 1,000 school activities (athletic games, art events, spelling bees, academic bowls, etc.) to more than 5,000 students from 30 Illinois counties.

Chicago Run’s mission is to enhance the health and wellness of Chicago children through innovative, engaging, and sustainable youth running programs. Chicago Run provides programs to Chicago children and youth from pre-k through high school in low-income neighborhoods. These programs aim to instill the daily habit of physical activity, build leadership skills, break down cultural barriers, and promote social emotional learning through running and fitness..

EPIC EXPERIENCE is about finding a life beyond cancer. We offer free outdoor camps, including white-water adventures, hiking, snowshoeing, and much more. Throughout the experience, participants challenge themselves physically, find community with other survivors, talk through fears, and share laughs. Participants return home with insights to help them live and thrive beyond cancer. Anyone over 18 years old, who has ever been diagnosed with cancer, is eligible.

At GIRLS IN THE GAME, every girl finds her voice, discovers her strength and leads with confidence through fun and active sports, health and leadership programs.

Inspired by one of the co-founder’s experience of coaching hockey for low-income inner-city children in West Garfield Park, INNER-CITY EDUCATION PROGRAM (ICE) was established to help low-income children obtain educational and hockey opportunities not otherwise available to them. ICE offers educational scholarships to Chicago area students (1st grade through college) who actively play hockey, demonstrate financial need and a strong personal character, maintain a 2.5 GPA and a satisfactory disciplinary record, and do 80 hours of community service during the summer. Each scholarship recipient receives a pre-screened mentor who provides academic, professional, and personal guidance/assistance, so that the student-athlete is empowered to make positive life choices. ICE also provides free hockey practices twice a week—along with an hour of mandatory academic tutoring before each practice—for more than 150 girls and boys in the Chicagoland area.

KIDS KICKING CANCER is a non-profit organization that provides therapeutic martial arts classes and hospital visits for children and teens. Our mission is to ease the pain of very sick children while empowering them to heal physically, spiritually and emotionally. Through an innovative program that merges modern integrative medicine with traditional martial arts, KIDS KICKING CANCER addresses the overwhelming needs of children with illness. Specially trained black belt martial artists teach breathing, visualization, and relaxation techniques, in addition to traditional martial arts moves to help empower the children and provide them with a sense of power, peace and purpose. Martial arts classes, support during hospital and clinic procedures, and uniforms, are provided to families at no cost.

LESLIE’S WEEK provides one-week vacations away from cancer to Stage 4 Breast Cancer women and their families, so they can make memories of fun and happiness that outlast cancer. The nonprofit organization also provides educational grants to children of LESLIE’S WEEK women who have succumbed to their cancer. LESLIE’S WEEK was founded in honor of Leslie Twohig, who passed away from breast cancer—leaving behind two sons, two granddaughters, and a husband—but never lost her gallant determination to smile through incredible pain and to enjoy life despite a terminal diagnosis. LESLIE’S WEEK began with one family on one vacation and has since provided vacations to more than 85 Stage 4 Breast Cancer women and their families, or more than 500+ individuals.

In 2010, thirteen individuals came together inspired by a mutual friend’s determination to make something great come from a recent diagnosis of a brain tumor. Everyone shared a link to a neurological challenge (brain tumors, aneurysms, epilepsy, etc.). Their experiences ranged from personal diagnosis to supporting diagnosed family members and friends. The group also shared a passion for the outdoors, an unyielding enthusiasm for life, and a drive to overcome the hardship of a neurological challenge while focusing on quality of life. These commonalities inspired the idea of Outdoor Mindset (OM). Through the OM Community, Regional Meetup Groups, and the Adventure Scholarship, Outdoor Mindset relationships and experiences inspire hope, instill passion for maintaining outdoor lives, and empower people by support from others uniquely familiar with their experience.

Co-founded by a breast-cancer survivor and a high-school rowing coach, RECOVERY ON WATER (ROW) is a rowing team that gives patients and survivors of breast cancer the unique opportunity to interact, become active in their recovery, and gain support from fellow survivors. ROW offers free year-round rowing programs on the Chicago River or on indoor rowing machines. The goal of ROW is to increase exercise consistency in people diagnosed with breast cancer and to improve their quality of life. No rowing experience is required.

XS TENNIS AND EDUCATION FOUNDATION (XS) seeks to give local student-athletes the tools, support and motivation to succeed both on the court and in the classroom. XS’s mission is to provide Chicago’s underserved youth with an enriching safe haven and positive academic/athletic pathway to college through community-based tennis programs, summer camps, and academic support. 100% of XS student-athletes in the high-performance after-school tennis program have graduated from high school; 100% have earned access to college; and 100% have received full college-tennis scholarships. Founded by Kamau Murray—who was introduced to tennis in a free after-school program on Chicago’s South Side and then went to college on a full tennis scholarship—XS reaches more than 3,000 kids across numerous underserved Chicago communities.