This school year represents new beginnings for Jacob Bowers.
Bowers, 14, started his freshman year at a college prep charter school not far from his home on Chicago’s West Side. After being accepted earlier this year, he found out he was the only person from his middle school going there. “I thought, this is my clean slate,” said Bowers, who enjoys playing basketball, making beats with his DJ equipment, and envisions becoming a lawyer one day. “All the mistakes I made in middle school and elementary school, no one’s going to know about it,” he continued. “I just get to go fresh.” But this fresh start looks different than Bowers or anyone could have imagined. With the COVID-19 pandemic closing schools across the city, children with parents still working outside of the home needed somewhere to go during the day and complete their online coursework. The Barreto Union League Boys and Girls Club, a longtime haven for kids like Bowers in the Humboldt Park neighborhood, has become one of those remote learning hubs, offering makeshift classrooms to 90 students ranging from first grade to high school seniors. Bowers, whose parents both work, now attends school virtually from the Barreto Club. He’s been coming to “the club” since he was six years old. The facility – tucked away on a residential street near the West Division/North California intersection – is just a short walk from the home he shares with his parents, older sister and three younger brothers, two of whom are newborn twins. “It’s more productive than sitting at home,” he said about doing his online classes at the Barreto Club. “We’re safe here, too. We get to have fun. Even though we have to social distance, I still get to be around people.”Meals help you ‘work better, move better’
In addition to a safe, socially distanced space, these students also receive nutritious meals throughout the day to nourish their bodies and minds.The 90 kids who come to the Barreto Club during the school day, ranging in age from first grade to high school seniors, have access to free breakfast, lunch and snacks.
Jeremy Murphy, the Barreto Club's director of Club Services
“I know personally when you eat your three meals throughout the day, it helps you work better, move better, operate better,” Bowers said. “Keeps you more awake and focused.”
‘Stepping into the gap’
A student at the South Side YMCA eats his lunch, provided in partnership with the Food Depository.
Gabriella Jeffires, 7, eats her lunch at the South Side YMCA
A student at the South Side YMCA receives a lunch on a recent October afternoon.
“We are literally stepping into the gap, fighting the good fight,” he said. “We are definitely providing a service of not only education but providing the service of hope. Survival. It means so much.”Learn more about our COVID-19 response or where to find food