Chicago-area Assyrian community center to receive $250,000 state grant for daycare center

Yasmeen Altaji | July 18, 2024 | Featured Image/Google

A Chicago-area Assyrian community center will receive a $250,000 state grant for the construction of a daycare center, according to a statement from Illinois State Senator Ram Villivalam.

The Assyrian Cultural Foundation (ACF), formerly known as the Assyrian Universal Alliance Foundation (AUAF), is set to receive the quarter of a million-dollar grant to build the daycare center in Lincolnwood, a suburb of Chicago, where the ACF is located.

The announcement came from Villivalam’s office Wednesday in an emailed “state budget update for the Assyrian American community” obtained by The Word.

“I am proud to announce that I was able to secure a $250,000 grant for the Assyrian Cultural Foundation to build a Daycare Center in Lincolnwood,” the email from Villivalam read. “This work would not have been possible without the advocacy from Assyrian community leaders and the petitions that our office received from the community in support of this project.”

A petition for government support of the project began circulating earlier this year, calling for help establishing a daycare center “specifically designed to serve immigrant/refugee and low-income families.”

A civic engagement group called Vote Assyrian was behind the petition, according to the group’s executive director, Ashur Shiba, who is also a trustee of the Village of Morton Grove just outside of Chicago.

Shiba “lobbied for the funds”, he told The Word in a message, while working with the local Assyrian Student Association of Chicago to mobilize petition signatories.

“We got over 1,000 signatures in a weekend,” he said.

According to the petition, the entire project will check out at an estimated $2 million, and the requested $250,000 supplements an already secured $1.75 million.

Illinois’ fiscal year 2025 budget allocates $748 million in block grant funding for early childhood programs. It is unclear based on Villivalam’s statement whether the grant for ACF was sourced directly from this pool.

Chicago and its suburbs are home to one of the largest Assyrian diaspora hubs in the world, with an estimated 100,000 living in the state of Illinois.