Our Outreach Initiatives 

Dream Big offers an alternative. We plan to serve youth ages ten to sixteen in the communities of Greater Grand Crossing, Englewood, Woodlawn, South Shore, and Back of the Yards. We will provide a range of services including mentoring, early childhood development, anger management, health information, financial literacy, and career development. We’ll also enlist the help of a network of social workers and therapists to work with students and their families.

Before incorporating as a 501c3, Dream Big operated informally and has serviced approximately 500 boys and girls over the last seven years. When they enrolled in Dream Big most students were two, even three, grade levels behind. With our diverse group of educators and volunteers, we were able to meet all goals and put in place a plan of action to bring all students up to grade level. 

Dream Big will connect program staff and mentors with students to meet for approximately 20 hours a week for 12 months. During that time, students will participate in goal planning and ongoing mentorship. Staff will motivate the students through positive reinforcement activities and celebration of accomplishments. Students and staff will engage on a variety of topics, including job stability and educational success, positive social skills, financial management, mature decision making, and mental health care. Mentors and staff will receive appropriate training and must pass a background check before they begin working directly with students. Each year, programming will start with a kick-off celebration to welcome the new students.

Dream Big recognizes the need to address the student’s holistic environment. It will also offer support services to each student’s family and will discuss ways that parents and family members can successfully interact with their student’s school and teachers to further benefit their students.

On a monthly or bi-monthly basis, Dream Big will invite social workers from its network to provide presentations, activities, and services to the students and their families. In addition to the immediate support to the families, these interactions will help to negate the stigma of seeking professional mental health services, which is prevalent in the community.

Dream Big will also have monthly or bi-monthly field trips for the students to help them experience the rest of Chicago beyond their home communities. These field trips will act as both educational opportunities and incentives for ongoing progress.

Dream Big utilizes measurement tools such as the STEP Literacy Assessment, which was developed by the University of Chicago Urban Education Institute. Dream Big uses the process below for evaluating each student’s progress:

• Assess needs to identify goals

• Conduct Instructional Analysis

• Analyze learners and contexts

• Write performance objectives

• Revise Instruction

• Develop Assessment Instruction

• Develop Instructional Strategy

• Develop and select Instructional materials

• Design and conduct formative evaluation of instruction

• Design and conduct Summative evaluation

With lack of resources and accommodations for low income families’, marginalized communities, and single family households, remote learning experiences have been detrimental to the group of scholars in this percentile. Not having the comfort to truly flourish in an unstable living environment has added to the social/emotional dysfunction that has caused anxiety, depression, and hopelessness on if we will eventually get back to what was our norm before COVID 19. Dream Big Mentoring And Out Reach would love to be of assistance with providing a comfortable work space in scholars homes so that they can make the best of their current situation. A nice desk and chair that allows scholars to not be in close proximity with a sibling that is also in excel in a virtual setting. Having headphones that serves as a barrier to prevent other distractions can also be useful in the learning setting. If you will like to be a part of this funding event that will help over one hundred scholars receive a desk, chair and headphones please click on the donate button and pledge your seed. More information regarding this project is forth coming.