Program areas at LSNA
The Education Program includes the Parent Mentor Program and the Community Learning Centers - For over 25 years, Palenque LSNA has been training parents in the Logan Square area, mainly Latina and Black mothers, to help fill persistent equity gaps by volunteering in classrooms for two hours/day for at least 100 hours. Upon completing the initial leadership and tutoring training, Parent Mentors are assigned a classroom, where they work with students one-on-one or in small groups for two hours per day, four days per week. On Fridays, the Parent Mentor cohort comes together for ongoing professional development trainings. After 100 hours, Parent Mentors are eligible to receive a $1,000 stipend.Palenque LSNA's community learning centers provide academic and cultural enrichment opportunities to school-age children, youth, and their families at McAuliffe and Barry elementary schools and at Kelvyn Park high school.
Youth - Palenque LSNA hires youth ages 14 to 24 years old for Summer Social Justice Internships. High schoolers can earn a stipend while developing leadership and community organizing skills with the Youth Leadership Institute through creating and implementing their own community action research project. Our Youth Council is composed of a diverse range of active students from across our many programs, including the Northwest Side Presente Palenque Fellowship and Palenque LSNA Committee Members. The Youth Council meets multiple times a month to exclusively connect and share what youth view as priorities that need to be addressed in our communities.
Parent Engagement Institute (PEI): Is collaboration between LSNA and Southwest Organizing Project (SWOP), which provides programmatic training, mentoring, and best practices to partner organizations interested in developing their own Parent Mentor Programs locally, nationally, and internationally.
Housing - We use our platform and networks to advocate for specific equitable housing developments. We advocate for policy development and changes that support equitable transit-oriented development, minimum density development, reducing deconversions and demolitions, and more.
Immigration - Palenque LSNA organizes its immigration work into three main areas of focus. We protect our most vulnerable neighbors, we decrease people's sense of isolation and we bring awareness to issues of immigrant justice. We offer services for DACA renewals, Residency and Green Cards, Citizenship, and other immigration services.
New Communities - In 2018, Palenque LSNA published a five-year QLP with the support of LISC Chicago. As we sunset the 2018-2023 QLP this year, we have begun the community-based planning process to create our next three-year QLP.We will conduct community research, surveys, and focus groups in the fall of 2023 and share the information with Palenque LSNA's committees, who will use this along with review of the 2018-2023 QLP to craft our plan for the next three years. The committees in the winter and spring 2023 will work to identify strategies, projects, and campaigns in each broad issue area with the goal of presenting a new plan in May 2023.
Disaster Relief - We provided direct relief to families and individuals during the COVID 19 Pandemic through grants and stipends.