Yesterday, on a very warm August afternoon, volunteers from HSAwareness visited the Chicago Commons’ Nia Family Center in Humboldt Park to help in renovating the school’s playground, which has been underutilized and in need of repairs for the past 9 years.

Chicago Commons, a 100-year-old outreach and education program and a long-time client of HSA, approached representatives from the real estate firm after learning of their HSAwareness initiative. Eric Woods (pictured above), manager of the Nia Family Center, said their facility, which provides child care and after school programs for newborns up to age 12, had a playground that needed some attention in order to make it safe and functional for the school’s students.

HSAwareness enlisted a team of volunteers to participate in the clean-up effort. The HSAwareness group was led by the company’s CEO Bob Smietana (seen above) who, along with Craig Phillips, Brenton Schrader, Kristin Kolanowski, and Sean Flanagan, helped to lay pavers for a new sidewalk throughout the playground and courtyard area. HSA’s Jennifer Morck, Josephine Thomas-Hoytt, Karen Coleman, and Janet Risch worked with the team to improve the landscaping throughout the campus by removing much of the brush and planting new shrubs and flowers.

HSAwareness helped make a lot of progress on the park renovation project, which will be completed and open for the students in two weeks –just in time for the start of the school year.

HSAwareness is grateful to Chicago Commons for allowing us the opportunity to contribute to this project and to all of our dedicated volunteers that devoted their time and effort to restoring the park.

About HSAwareness
HSAwareness is the social outreach arm of HSA Commercial Real Estate, which was created to encourage generosity and volunteerism among our team members and other stakeholders.