Thank You

Thank You, KYC Supporters!

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Jacob and his mother Anna made face mask for front-line staff members. They also wrote messages of gratitude and encouragement to our teams for their dedicated service to the community.

It’s hard to believe that it has only been a few weeks since the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic brought the stay at home order to our way of life. While so much has changed so quick­ly, there is one thing that has nev­er changed — the kind­ness and will­ing­ness to help oth­ers among our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers. Ken­neth Young Cen­ter is grate­ful to be a part of such a thought­ful, com­pas­sion­ate net­work of local super­heroes that can’t be stopped by any out­side force. We are thank­ful for the time, tal­ents, and gifts that so many of you have shared in sup­port of our mission.

Thank You for Giving

Collected masks for distribution

Masks packed in plastic bags to be distributed to KYC's mobile teams to keep clients and staff safe.

KYC has worked hard to con­tin­ue pro­vid­ing as many of our essen­tial ser­vices with as lit­tle dis­rup­tion as pos­si­ble to the com­mu­ni­ty. In order to do that, our staff and vol­un­teers need­ed face masks and gloves. We are extreme­ly grate­ful to all of the com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers who helped answer the call for these per­son­al pro­tec­tive items that enable us to pro­vide the life-chang­ing ser­vices that our clients need.

We also found that our clients, espe­cial­ly the ones who are home­bound, or who need a high lev­el of sup­port to live well in the com­mu­ni­ty, were hav­ing extreme dif­fi­cul­ty find­ing basic needs items like toi­let paper. At a time when you’re more like­ly to find emp­ty shelves at the gro­cery store than to find these cru­cial sup­plies, our com­mu­ni­ty part­ners helped answer this need, too.

Thank you to every­one who helped share these gifts with us at a time when they were so need­ed. We apol­o­gize if there is any­one we missed in this list — please con­tact Kate if we missed your name, as some items were dropped off anony­mous­ly and we’d like to include you!

Diane and Nancy

Susan and Diane have been making and collecting masks to support KYC.

We would like to for­mal­ly rec­og­nize our appre­ci­a­tion to the fol­low­ing peo­ple who helped in this effort as of April 16th:

  • Shaw­na B. — donat­ed 60 masks and a box of gloves
  • Leslie B. and Karen W. (Prince of Peace Luther­an Church) — donat­ed 14 masks
  • Sam D. — donat­ed 15 masks
  • First Pres­by­ter­ian Church of Arling­ton Heights — 200 rolls of toi­let paper
  • Susan F. — donat­ed a box of masks
  • Sue G. and Mary L. (Our Sav­iour Unit­ed Methodist Church) — donat­ed 25 masks
  • Anna H. and Ani­ta P. (Great Amer­i­ca Insur­ance) — donat­ed 50 masks
  • Leah L. — donat­ed 15 masks
  • Pat M. — donat­ed 25 masks
  • Con­nie M. — donat­ed 100 masks
  • Rotary Club of Schaumburg/​Hoffman Estates — donat­ed toi­let paper
  • Sub­aru — a box of N95 masks
  • Jea­nine V. (St. Mar­celline Church) — donat­ed a box of gloves
  • Ang­ie W. — donat­ed 15 masks and a box of gloves
  • Susan and Diane — made and donat­ed masks
  • Anna and Jacob — masks and mes­sages of encour­age­ment cards for front-staff

Thank You for Deliv­er­ing Meals

Old­er adults are espe­cial­ly at risk of con­tract­ing COVID-19, and are urged to stay at home. Due to their increased risk, and the unavail­abil­i­ty of meals through com­mu­nal din­ing sites, there are now more old­er adults than ever who rely on home deliv­ered meals as their only source of nutri­tious food. KYC’s Home Deliv­ered Meals pro­gram has grown very rapid­ly dur­ing this out­break, and we are grate­ful to pro­vide this essen­tial ser­vice thanks to the incred­i­ble vol­un­teers and staff mem­bers who have stepped in to a deliv­ery role to help meet this increased demand.

To all of our reg­u­lar Meals dri­vers, and to those who have tak­en on addi­tion­al routes or start­ed deliv­er­ing for the first time dur­ing the pan­dem­ic: THANK YOU. You pro­vide well-bal­anced meals to peo­ple who would oth­er­wise go with­out, and a well­ness check to ensure that iso­lat­ed seniors can be as safe as pos­si­ble in their own homes. We can’t thank you enough for all that you do for our clients.

Thank You for Donating

These are uncer­tain finan­cial times for us all as indi­vid­u­als, and for orga­ni­za­tions as well. Thank you to every­one who has donat­ed to KYC through­out the COVID-19 out­break. Your sup­port is need­ed now, more than ever, to ensure that our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers are con­nect­ed with the cru­cial resources they need, when they need them. We are grate­ful for all of the good work we’re con­tin­u­ing to do togeth­er through the gifts that you have shared.

Thank You, Com­mu­ni­ty Partners

KYC is grate­ful for our many com­mu­ni­ty part­ner­ships that have helped us build stronger com­mu­ni­ties togeth­er, through both good times and chal­leng­ing ones. We would like to say a spe­cial thank you to the com­mu­ni­ty part­ners who have pro­vid­ed extra sup­port in the recent weeks:

  • Church Street Brew­ing Com­pa­ny — pro­vid­ed KYC with tough-to-find FDA approved hand san­i­tiz­er. They began pro­duc­ing this much-need­ed prod­uct dur­ing the pan­dem­ic to help keep local non-prof­its and com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers safe as they pro­vide essen­tial services. 
  • Lou Mal­nati’s — coor­di­nat­ed a Give­Back Night ear­li­er in April as a fundrais­er for KYC. Three loca­tions par­tic­i­pat­ed in this event, which helped raise over $300 for KYC.
  • Lyn­fred Win­ery — select­ed KYC as their Char­i­ty of the Month for March. Even as so much has changed over the course of that month, they still sup­port­ed KYC with a gen­er­ous dona­tion of over $900!
  • Ric­car­do’s Ris­torante — will be hold­ing an upcom­ing Car­ry­out for KYC fundrais­ing event on April 21st and 22nd. We are so grate­ful for the part­ner­ships we have with local restau­rants and for the oppor­tu­ni­ty for us to mutu­al­ly sup­port one anoth­er dur­ing such chal­leng­ing times.
Church Street Hand Sanitizer

Thank You, Supporters

There are many, many ways that many, many com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers have come togeth­er to sup­port one anoth­er and the work that Ken­neth Young Cen­ter does through­out this pan­dem­ic. We have no doubt that we will con­tin­ue to see more of the kind­ness, gen­eros­i­ty, and thought­ful­ness in the weeks and months to come. We could­n’t be more proud to serve our com­mu­ni­ties along­side each of you.

Look­ing For a Way to Help from Home?

If you’re look­ing for a way to sup­port KYC from the com­fort of your home, check out our upcom­ing event, the 19th annu­al Hus­tle for Health 5K Run/​Walk. This is KYC’s largest annu­al fundrais­er, and this year, we’ll need help from all of our KYC Super­heroes to reach our goal of rais­ing $100,000 to sup­port the ser­vices our com­mu­ni­ty mem­bers need, now more than ever, to live their best lives. Your par­tic­i­pa­tion in this event can be 100% vir­tu­al. Check out how you and your fam­i­ly can get involved and par­tic­i­pate in this event today: Get start­ed.


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