For the third year in a row, a team of volunteers from HSAwareness traveled to Chicago Commons’ Paulo Freire Family Center yesterday in Chicago’s Back of the Yards neighorhood to help spruce up the facility’s playground ahead of the new school year. HSA’s team worked all afternoon to spread new mulch and woodchips, plant flowers, and stain wood furniture and fixtures at the Paulo Freire Family Center, which provides comprehensive early childhood education programs with an emphasis on parent / guardian engagement for local families-in-need.

The crew from HSAwareness, led by Bob Smietana and Josephine Thomas-Hoytt, arrived carrying 24 backpacks filled with school supplies for graduating Chicago Commons students who are preparing for kindergarten. Through the generosity of the company’s employees and partners, HSAwareness conducted a supply drive over the past few weeks to collect pencils, crayons, folders, notebooks, and more to stuff the backpacks and prepare the little graduates for their upcoming school year.

For more than 120 years, Chicago Commons’ mission has been to partner with individuals, families, and communities to overcome poverty, discrimination, and isolation. Their programs are designed to help children, families and seniors go further to live richer, more fulfilling lives. As the charity’s longtime advocate and 2016 Corporate Partner of the Year, HSA Commercial is excited and proud to support the important work that Chicago Commons is doing in our community and is looking forward to future projects together.

We are grateful, as always, to our friends and colleagues that helped support the Chicago Commons school supply drive and to our team of hardworking volunteers that made this year’s playground clean-up successful and fun!