Many of the 70 immigrant and refugee attending Rogers Park’s Roger C. Sullivan High School enjoyed their first Thanksgiving celebration on Tuesday, November 22, 2021, as the Friends of Sullivan, in partnership with the Rogers Park Builders Group, hosted Sullivan’s Fifth annual Thanksgiving Celebration.
On Wednesday, September 8, join the New Press, Sullivan High School, and the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights for a conversation on the new book Refugee High: Copming of Age in America.
Author Elly Fishman will be joined in conversation by Sullivan alum Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky (IL-09), and current Sullivan High School students about their thoughts on Refugee High, being a refugee or immigrant student at Sullivan today, and how the school and neighborhood have evolved over time.
As of now, the Sullivan High School Solidarity Fund has delivered $250 checks to 30 Sullivan families. Thirty families who really needed the money.
For example: a 12th grade student, living with an aunt and a grandmother, was referred by one of her teachers. The student, recently traumatized by the shooting death of a friend, learned in May that her grandmother had Covid-19. Among all the associated worries, grandmother lost the job that held her family together. The student’s studies were not then her first priority.
The most significant Friends of Sullivan project to date, the FOS fully funded the conversion of Sullivan’s tired and less than functional library space into The Ellen Glasser Global Center, an exciting new space that promotes learning and fellowship among Sullivans English Learner population as well as the rest of the student body.
In 2019 and 2020, the FOS has underwritten the cost for a Martin Luther King Day tournament, chronicled HERE.
Here’s a cheer for the Sullivan High School Alumni Association. Over nearly three decades, the faithful alums contributed over $300,000 to Sullivan; 80 percent of it for student scholarships, and the rest for the “Teachers Wish List,” which usually meant money for supplies teachers were paying for out of pocket. Sadly, the Sullivan High Alumni Association disbanded at the end of last year.
Friends of Sullivan is thrilled to have successfully partnered with Sullivan to fund this important arts project.
