East Side Aligned, a local nonprofit serving youth, received a nearly $450,000 state grant from Illinois to provide more after-school programs and services to children and families in East St. Louis and surrounding communities.
The Illinois Criminal Justice Information Authority’s Restore, Reinvest and Renew program funds community-based organizations working in areas harmed by economic disinvestment, violence and excessive incarceration. It is funded by state revenues from the sale of recreational cannabis for adults.
East Side Aligned and its after-school program for youth, East St. Louis Youth Development Alliance, serve approximately 1,000 children per year through 10 after-school programs in the eastern metropolitan region. The grant funds will help the company expand its STEAM programs, provide on-site mental health services and build its college and career pathways program.
These programs will equip area students with leadership and life skills, said Evan Krauss, executive director of East Side Aligned.
“It opens up new worlds, opens up new possibilities, and they really enjoy it when they get to do that,” he said.
Krauss wants to highlight the need for after-school programs, as he says many programs are often overlooked and underutilized, forcing them to close their doors.
The youth development alliance helps service organizations such as the Christian Activity Center, Catholic Urban Programs, Sinai Family Life Center, the Jackie Joyner-Kersee Foundation and the East St Louis School District 189. It offers tutoring, arts and crafts, summer activities, fieldwork, travel and mentoring.
Illinois Sen. Christopher Belt, D-Swansea, remembers sports being his outlet after school while growing up in the Metro East. He said it taught him discipline and kept him out of trouble. He wants children in East St. Louis to have access to more activities after school.
Many of the cities he represents are among the poorer cities in Illinois.
“When you have situations like that, they are conducive to crime, they are conducive to despair and hopelessness,” he said. “It is very important that our children have a program after school that gives them the opportunity to be whatever they want to be.”
Belt said he championed this grant in the Illinois Legislature because he wanted children to see that their community cares about their quality of life.
“We are planting seeds today that will be harvested later, and you will see the beautiful harvest that will come about because these programs are here, and it will show the children that they matter,” he said.
