The summer of 2011 marked After School Matters 20th Anniversary—that’s two decades of providing teens with opportunities to discover their potential and find their path to a meaningful life, while also beautifying our City and enriching our neighborhoods.

We commemorated this incredible milestone by celebrating the extraordinary talents of our teens and the impact that our organization has made with a June 29 public celebration on Daley Plaza. Supporters, partners, current and past instructors, alumni and teens joined our emcee Actress and After School Matters Board Member Joan Cusack, Illinois State Senator Kwame Raoul (D-13) and Chicago Public Schools Chief Executive Officer Jean-Claude Brizard for teen performances, a speaking program and ceremonial cake-cutting.

Our 20th Anniversary celebration continued at our annual Gala, which was held September 15 at Chicago’s historic Navy Pier. More than 200 Chicago teens came together to sing, dance, play instruments and showcase their visual art and culinary skills for nearly 1,500 guests. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel served as the honorary chair for the event, which raised more than $2.8 million to support programming for Chicago teens.

After School Matters is the largest program of its type in the nation providing impactful, life-changing programming to high school teens. Because we are the leader in out-of-school time programming for high school youth, cities across the nation and around the world look to us for advice and guidance in how to replicate these results. In 2011, After School Matters shared its programming and youth development expertise with visitors from around the globe, including dignitaries and government officials from Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Taiwan, Ukraine and the United Kingdom, to name a few.  We have also enjoyed visits from U.S. city officials from coast-to-coast including Atlanta, Milwaukee and Washington, D.C. All came to see how After School Matters aligns its resources and works within the Chicago community to provide impactful and meaningful programming to teens. We are pleased that After School Matters mission and accomplishments resonated with our visitors and many looked to carry this information back to their communities and implement it into their existing infrastructure sometime in the near future, so that youth across the nation and around the world are provided with opportunities to have a brighter future.

We are all stakeholders in the future of Chicago teenagers. As we reflect on the successes of the past two decades and the number of lives we have touched, we look forward to the future and another 20 years of providing Chicago public high school teens with opportunities to explore and develop their talents, while gaining critical skills for work, college and beyond. Because After School Matters…it really does!

Cordially,

Maggie Daley
Chair, After School Matters

If you enjoyed this update from After School Matters, sign up to receive email updates.