Welcome Elli!

Around this time of year, the staff at LPCS say goodbye to familiar faces, and welcome new ones.  LPCS, like many other non-profit agencies, utilize various volunteer service corps to fill certain positions (such as AmeriCorps, Lutheran Volunteer Corps, etc.). Working with these groups is a wonderful experience both for LPCS and the volunteer.  Volunteers bring with them a fresh perspective and wonderful ideas.  For the volunteer, they get to learn or improve a new set of skills.  So this fall, as we get ready to say goodbye to Julia Weegar, our Volunteer Coordinator and AmeriCrops*VISTA for the past year, we welcome Elli Krandel who will be taking over Julia's role as Volunteer Coordinator.  So, in her own words, is a little bit about Elli!

Hi! My name is Elli Krandel. Originally from Woodstock, Illinois, I attended the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, where I received a degree in Economics, and I am super excited to start this next part of my life by working for LPCS. I will be joining LPCS as the new Volunteer Coordinator, and as an AVODAH fellow.

AVODAH is a year-long service program for people in their 20s combining work at non-profit agencies with pluralistic Jewish learning and living, and I couldn’t be more thrilled to be a part of it.

I have always been interested in various social justice issues. In college, I was the treasurer for an organization called Challah for Hunger, which sells challah, a traditional Jewish bread, to raise money for various non-profit organizations. When I found AVODAH, I was really excited about the opportunity to explore my passion for anti-poverty work, while continuing to investigate the connection between Judaism and social justice work. I was equally excited when I saw the opportunity to work at LPCS. I think the work the shelter does is incredible, and I cannot wait to do my part to help the organization continue providing vital services to the community.

So join us in welcoming Elli to the LPCS team! 

Goodbye, Katie!

After two years at LPCS, Katie McNamara is moving on to another organization.  She wanted to take the time to say "Goodbye and thank you LPCS guests, volunteers, and staff!" 

When I was a junior in high school, our Humanities teacher gave us the homework assignment to: Intentionally put yourself in a new and uncomfortable position for a day and report back. My friend and I decided to “be homeless for a day”. We went to the thrift store and bought “homeless looking” clothes, allocated only enough money for the train ride from the suburbs into Chicago, left our wallets at home, perched ourselves in front of the train station at Madison and Canal, and begged for change so that we could get back home at the end of the day and maybe get a bite to eat. Looking back, I realize how ghastly naive this was, but I see what my 16 year old self was trying to accomplish. I was searching for some kind of understanding around what it meant to be homeless; what was the day to day experience of these mysterious folks I saw on the streets of Chicago?; is it easy to be homeless?; is it hard?; what are these people like?; should I feel bad for them?; should I help them?

Now, almost 10 years later, and having worked at the Lincoln Park Community Shelter for two years, these answers are coming into focus. Mostly, the answer is “it depends.” It’s no surprise that this is not something one can discover from a one day high school homework project, in which we received an A for effort and an F at “being homeless.” These days, as a graduate student receiving a Master of Arts in Social Work and taking on the role of Case Manager at LPCS, my “assignments” are more sophisticated, but sometimes still as uncomfortable and new. There are serious emotional, physical, financial, and spiritual challenges that our guests face; however, the most surprising aspect of my time at LPCS was that, despite the heart-wrenching stories that come through the door, it is generally a happy, loose, comfortable place to be. I’ve appreciated that our On Track Program sticks to the philosophy of empowering homeless individuals to make life changes; this fosters an environment where the infamous “burn out” of social service providers is largely avoided. LPCS was also a wonderful place to be because of our volunteers. As Volunteer Coordinator, I would often say that opening up my work email absolutely restored my faith in humanity. It was consistently filled with messages from enthusiastic, creative people asking how they can help out.

My next position will be as a social work intern at the Jesse Brown Veterans Administration Medical Center in their Addiction Treatment Program. It is frightening sometimes to consider the countless new challenges I will face in this and future jobs. However, I am comforted by my firm confidence that there is nowhere else I would have rather begun my career than at LPCS. Thank you LPCS guests, volunteers, and staff for an unforgettable learning experience.

--Katie McNamara, Case Manager and former Volunteer Coordinator

What a year it's going to be!

There I was, covered in flour, red and green food coloring staining the tips of my fingers, as I kneaded a mound of salt dough in the kitchen of Lincoln Park Community Shelter. An informal assembly line of guests filled the space around me, armed with rolling pins and cookie cutters as we laughed and crooned, rather off-key, along with the Rat Pack playing on the stereo. Our mission: to make fifty ornaments for Sunday’s Holiday Sing-A-Long at St. Paul’s Church.
This was not quite the scenario I’d imagined when I took over the Volunteer Coordinator position here at LPCS. I am, however, quickly coming to realize that these are exactly the kinds of moments that are going to make the next year one of the best I’ve ever had!


I want to take this opportunity to thank all of you who have welcomed me into the LPCS community. The few short weeks since I began have flown by faster than I could have imagined! It’s been a whirlwind of information and faces and wonderful stories and the sense that I’ve become part of a pretty incredible group of people--from the volunteers, to staff and, most of all, the guests of LPCS--grows stronger every day!
 

--Julia Weegar, LPCS Volunteer Coordinator and AmeriCorps*VISTA

Happy AmeriCorps Week 2010!

When I graduated from DePaul University last June 2009 with a degree in Political Science and zero desire to go to law school, I was worried. What to do with the upcoming months of my life as I figured out a plan for my future? I certainly wanted a professional experience, but not SO professional that I would be thrust into a maelstrom of bottom lines, hierarchy and business suits. I wanted to continue my activism and follow the trajectory of non-profit work that I had been on for four years. But not SO activisty that I would be organizing protests, getting arrested and burnt out. I wanted the chance to go to graduate school at some point, but didn’t yet know what I would study. For a die-hard planner, this uncertainty was agonizing!

I came across the AmeriCorps website and was happy to find a position at the Lincoln Park Community Shelter for which I felt I had under my belt the work experience necessary. I was excited for the chance to work in the area of homelessness, a topic I had studied in college, but had little hands on experience. Luckily, this has turned out to be a great fit for me! I am so thankful for a job in which I receive just the right amount of supervision and have constant support from my co-workers. My job responsibilities are appropriate for my skill sets, and the challenges I face day to day are manageable and exciting. There is never a doubt in my mind that I am providing a necessary service to people in need, and that I really am fighting poverty! This immersive experience into a non-profit organization (and such a high level one at that) has helped cement my future plans. I’m thrilled to be starting graduate school at the University of Chicago School of Social Service Administration in the fall! Thank goodness for the AmeriCorps*VISTA program and the “grace period” it gave me between college and the next step in my professional development. This “grace period” has been more enjoyable and rewarding then I could have hoped.

For more information on AmeriCorps, please visit http://www.americorps.gov/  

--Katie McNamara, LPCS Volunteer Coordinator and AmeriCorps*VISTA

Volunteer Coordinator position open at LPCS!

LPCS is looking for a talented and friendly individual to join our team this fall as the Volunteer Coordinator. The Volunteer Coordinator works to recruit, train, and manage the thousands of volunteers we have each year. This is an Americorps*VISTA position, which means that it is a volunteer position that comes with a stipend provided by Americorps. For more information on the position, please visit our website: http://lpcsonline.org/staff.html. We'll be accepting applications through August 14th.