The Crusader Newspaper Group

Crushers Club receives grant from Sky Ranch Foundation

Grant to strengthen Englewood’s acclaimed violence
prevention/reduction program for high-risk youth

Englewood’s Crushers Club (incorporated as the non-profit Restoring the Path) recently announced being awarded a generous $20,000 grant from Sky Ranch Foundation. The recognition is in support of the Club’s successful year-round violence prevention and reduction program for youth involved in the juvenile justice system and those at greatest risk of becoming justice-involved. This is Crushers Club’s second contribution from Sky Ranch Foundation, which was established in 1961 and has awarded $3 million in grants to organizations providing support for at-risk youth since 2011.

Sally Hazelgrove, Crushers Club’s President and Executive Director, stated, “We are thrilled to continue our relationship with the Sky Ranch Foundation as a generous partner in Crushers Club’s ongoing efforts to prevent and reduce violence in our community.”

Grant funds will enable the Crushers Club to address community demand by serving larger numbers of Englewood youth each year through additional adult mentors, youth mentors, meals/snacks, and community-building field trips.

Restoring the Path was founded by Sally Hazelgrove in 2011 to be the strongest alternative to gangs by providing acutely high-risk youth with the support and tools needed to restore their lives and rebuild their communities. After winning A Better Chicago Project Impact competition in 2012, in response to Englewood’s epidemic of violence and incarceration, Crushers Club opened its doors the next year with an innovative youth-led approach utilizing boxing, music, peer mentoring, counseling, leadership/job skills development, and community activities. The Crushers Club theory of change is to harness the same tactics used by gangs to redirect and stabilize high-risk male youth rather than incarcerating them.

In addition to renewed funding from Sky Ranch Foundation, Crushers Club also received generous contributions from the Respect 90 Foundation and Cubs Charities, Jewish United Fund of Metropolitan Chicago, Prince Charitable Trusts, the Field Foundation of Illinois, W.P. and H.B. White Foundation, University of Chicago Med-  icine, the Albert Pick, Jr. Fund, Kenilworth Union Church, Andrew and Alice Fischer Charitable Trust, Chicago Fund for Safe and Peaceful Communities, the WaterWheel Foundation, John W. Anderson Foundation, John Hancock Life Insurance Company, and Modern Process Equipment, among others.

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