{"id":3058,"date":"2025-07-24T15:31:05","date_gmt":"2025-07-24T20:31:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/?p=3058"},"modified":"2025-07-24T15:31:05","modified_gmt":"2025-07-24T20:31:05","slug":"celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/","title":{"rendered":"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play!"},"content":{"rendered":"<h4><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">It\u2019s been a year of <\/span><i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">rebuilding and reinvention<\/span><\/i><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"> for Playworks Illinois, and we\u2019re proud to have successfully closed out another school year positively impacting the lives of children across Chicagoland. <\/span><\/h4>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Through all the changes in our local landscape, this year reaffirmed our resilience and unwavering commitment to our mission.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We didn\u2019t just adapt\u2014we advanced.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">We established new partnerships, deepened our relationships with long-standing schools, and expanded into a new region\u2014meeting new leaders, reaching new students, and planting seeds for continued growth. At the core of our work is a belief that every partner is an extension of our mission. We don\u2019t just deliver programming\u2014we build capacity, support implementation, and engage deeply. What sets us apart is our high-touch, values-driven approach to collaboration, and we are proud of the momentum we\u2019re building in this area.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">This year, we also:<\/span><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Served 12,343 students statewide<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, over 63% of whom qualify for free or reduced-price lunch\u2014ensuring our reach remained focused on communities with identified needs.<br \/>\n<\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Provided support and services for 28 partner organizations<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, including four Team Up partnerships that embedded our staff on-site for hands-on coaching and collaboration throughout the school year.<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Hosted our most successful Kickball Tournament yet<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">, bringing together seven cross-sector teams (eight paid registrations) and exceeding our fundraising goal by over 65%!<\/span><\/span><\/li>\n<li style=\"font-weight: 400;\" aria-level=\"1\"><b>Welcomed new leadership to our Illinois Advisory Board<\/b>, bringing fresh energy and ideas with a focus on deeper engagement and thought leadership.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">As we prepare for the upcoming school year, we\u2019re focused on expanding partnerships, increasing visibility, and staying rooted in what works: persistence, high-quality delivery and a spirit of collaboration. You can count on us to bring more play to more children and remain a trusted, mission-aligned partner to the communities we serve.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Thank you for being a part of this journey.<\/span><\/p>\n<p><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">With gratitude,<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Phasha Spencer<\/span><b><br \/>\n<\/b><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Executive Director<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\"><br \/>\n<\/span><span style=\"font-weight: 400;\">Playworks Illinois<\/span><\/p>\n<p><strong><a class=\"u-arrow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/2025-IL-Impact-Report.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">View our Impact Report<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It\u2019s been a year of rebuilding and reinvention for Playworks Illinois, and we\u2019re proud to have successfully closed out another school year positively impacting the lives of children across Chicagoland. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":3063,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"region":[],"class_list":["post-3058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-updates"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play! - Illinois<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"It\u2019s been a year of rebuilding and reinvention for Playworks Illinois, and we\u2019re proud to have successfully closed out another school year positively impacting the lives of children across Chicagoland.&hellip;\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play!\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"It\u2019s been a year of rebuilding and reinvention for Playworks Illinois, and we\u2019re proud to have successfully closed out another school year positively impacting the lives of children across Chicagoland. [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Illinois\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2025-07-24T20:31:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832-1024x572.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1024\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"572\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"jglasser\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"jglasser\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"jglasser\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#\/schema\/person\/5f265d8dc79df4f39e79135a9d81958b\"},\"headline\":\"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play!\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-24T20:31:05+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/\"},\"wordCount\":320,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832.png\",\"articleSection\":[\"Updates\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/\",\"name\":\"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play! - Illinois\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832.png\",\"datePublished\":\"2025-07-24T20:31:05+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#\/schema\/person\/5f265d8dc79df4f39e79135a9d81958b\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832.png\",\"width\":1782,\"height\":995},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play!\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/\",\"name\":\"Illinois\",\"description\":\"Just another Playworks site\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#\/schema\/person\/5f265d8dc79df4f39e79135a9d81958b\",\"name\":\"jglasser\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/47a9e59fa3b6679c126980c73405a01456eb8b2203b0d9ba5075dcdcdd053322?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/47a9e59fa3b6679c126980c73405a01456eb8b2203b0d9ba5075dcdcdd053322?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"jglasser\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/author\/jglasser\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play! - Illinois","description":"It\u2019s been a year of rebuilding and reinvention for Playworks Illinois, and we\u2019re proud to have successfully closed out another school year positively impacting the lives of children across Chicagoland.&hellip;","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play!","og_description":"It\u2019s been a year of rebuilding and reinvention for Playworks Illinois, and we\u2019re proud to have successfully closed out another school year positively impacting the lives of children across Chicagoland. [&hellip;]","og_url":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/","og_site_name":"Illinois","article_published_time":"2025-07-24T20:31:05+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1024,"height":572,"url":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832-1024x572.png","type":"image\/png"}],"author":"jglasser","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"jglasser","Est. reading time":"2 minutes"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"Article","@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#article","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/"},"author":{"name":"jglasser","@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#\/schema\/person\/5f265d8dc79df4f39e79135a9d81958b"},"headline":"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play!","datePublished":"2025-07-24T20:31:05+00:00","mainEntityOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/"},"wordCount":320,"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832.png","articleSection":["Updates"],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/","url":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/","name":"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play! - Illinois","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832.png","datePublished":"2025-07-24T20:31:05+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#\/schema\/person\/5f265d8dc79df4f39e79135a9d81958b"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/7\/2025\/07\/Screenshot-2025-07-24-at-4.19.46\u202fPM-e1753388591832.png","width":1782,"height":995},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/2025\/07\/24\/celebrating-a-year-of-growth-partnership-and-play\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Celebrating a Year of Growth, Partnership, and Play!"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/","name":"Illinois","description":"Just another Playworks site","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#\/schema\/person\/5f265d8dc79df4f39e79135a9d81958b","name":"jglasser","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/47a9e59fa3b6679c126980c73405a01456eb8b2203b0d9ba5075dcdcdd053322?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/47a9e59fa3b6679c126980c73405a01456eb8b2203b0d9ba5075dcdcdd053322?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"jglasser"},"url":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/author\/jglasser\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3058"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3068,"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3058\/revisions\/3068"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3063"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3058"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.playworks.org\/illinois\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=3058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}