With a $1.5 million boost, one Harvey organization seeks to ramp up jobs, mentorship, leadership programming

After completing her Master of Business Administration and beginning a certificate program at Governors State University, Harvey native Machelle Anderson began working at Community Economic Development Association of Cook County in Harvey to give back.

“I thought it was a way to revisit the intention of community action and community engagement,” Anderson said.

CEDA of Cook County provides many wraparound services, including energy assistance, housing services, and helps administer women, infant, and childrens (WIC) assistance. The organization services over 300,000 people and 150,000 households, per year.

Beginning as an intern and now a program manager, the role meant “rolling up your sleeves and really being in the community,” Anderson added.

In 2019, the group received a $1.5 million boost from the Robin Hood Foundation, an anti-poverty organization based in New York City. Now, she and other CEDA Harvey staff can ramp up jobs and development programming and train the next generation of leaders to become change agents in the city.

CEDA Harvey is part of a new pilot program called Mobility LABS, a three-year program anD collaborative effort between RHF, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the Harry & Jeanette Weinberg Foundation, and a private funder to help nine organizations in the United States combat poverty.

In 2020, CEDA Harvey launched the separately funded Engage Harvey, the planning phase where staff worked with three groups of residents in focus groups so “they could design what this grant looks like.”

“We asked residents ‘what are your hopes for your families and obstacles you face getting ahead in life?’” Anderson added.

UPLIFT Harvey, which Anderson helps oversee, is the result of those deep listening sessions, a set of programs focusing on jobs, development, and youth programming, specifically for 14-to-26-year olds.

“Robin Hood realized many of the people they helped kept coming back,” and that prompted RHF to broaden its footprint to eliminate poverty, leading to Mobility LABS. Select groups are based in cities, suburban, and rural areas spanning from the East Coast to the Midwest.

RHF invited CEDA of Cook County, which regularly does its own community needs assessment, to apply. CEDA of Cook County then selected the Harvey site to participate in LABS based on metrics like the poverty rate.

In Cook County, just over 14% of residents, or 730,000 people, live below or at the poverty line, according to CEDA’s recent assessment of community needs in suburban Cook County. That percentage is much more pronounced in Harvey, where nearly 33% of households live at or below the poverty line, according to 2020 decennial census data.

Last summer, CEDA Harvey entered the first year of the implementation phase, helping forty people get jobs. A new entrepreneurship program provides business owners with a grant upward of $400 upon completion. There’s mentorship provided in collaboration with My Block, My Hood, My City, a Chicago-based program that exposes youth to other communities and cultures.

Staff even launched an advocacy program, training youth to understand government processes and become more politically engaged residents.

“If we never get another dime, how can these services continue on in the community?” Staff are constantly thinking of non-traditional ways to measure their success. “Showing up to community meetings — that is a success measure.”

The pandemic created challenges during the engagement process in 2020 and first year of implementation in 2021. Challenges largely included barriers to technology, where people in need of services did not have access to computers or were joining virtual appointments using a family member’s cell phone.

For all of these programs, sustainability after three years is key. In effort to apply a more data-driven approach, CEDA Harvey also partnered with Equal Measures, a non-profit organization based in Philadelphia skilled in helping businesses design, build, or evaluate programs that advance social change.

Staff are also thinking about ways to work with other organizations in Harvey as they enter the second year of implementation this month.

“One of the things that we’d like to be part of is a network of resources. We have collaborated with Restoration Ministries and Adults Active in Youth Development quite a bit because there are already organizations in Harvey or working in Harvey that provide some of the services that residents hope to see that they may not be aware of.”

In news starved communities like Harvey, getting information from point A to point B has been a long-time struggle.

“Harvey is definitely a word of mouth town.” CEDA Harvey received a boost when the organization was recently featured in WTTW News special where CEDA staff described a struggle to get the word out about their new programs.

“We actually have a waiting list now,” Anderson beamed about their new programs.

“Once the word gets out, someone calls and says ‘well, such and such told me’,” Anderson remarked. Staff also shared flyers with the housing developments and marketed the programs aggressively on social media.

However, trust is also a major factor in expanding their reach. “People want proof of action,” Anderson said, and once residents see results, others come around.

CEDA of Cook County is a community action agency, designed to prioritize input from impacted people themselves.

This bottom-up approach to anti-poverty work is the standard now, but it was a departure from how government programming operated in 1964, when President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Economic Opportunity Act into law, a key anti-poverty bill under Johnson’s “War on Poverty” initiative.

The bill launched new social programs nationwide and authorized CAAs. There are over 1300 CAAs nationwide that work to build strong family and support systems while helping Americans become more self-sufficient.

CEDA Harvey staff are still remote, but those in need of services can schedule appointments.

If you are interested in learning more about CEDA’s UPLIFT Harvey programs, you can contact CEDA Harvey at (708) 339-3610.