Our Mission

In community with parents, volunteers, local leaders and institutions, our mission is to renew our neighborhoods by lifting, forming, and empowering our young people, one family at a time.
 

Our Beginnings

In 1987, two recent college graduates arrived at Blessed Sacrament parish in North Lawndale in order to perform a year of community service. However, soon after they arrived, they discovered that there were few after-school activities for youth leaving many to wander the streets and be tempted by the neighborhood’s lesser influences. So they then set about to begin their own youth ministry in an abandoned two flat and thus Blessed Sacrament Youth Center came to be. We began as an after-school drop-in center with a single basketball hoop in an unheated garage, a ping pong table and fewer than a dozen members.
 

Today and Our Future

What began so small soon began to grow. Eventually, a part time youth director was hired and later a full time director with many parish volunteers assisting. We then added more programming such as tutoring, computer lab, arts and crafts and field trips to serve more youth.

By 2007, we had outgrown our original two flat and moved into the then vacant Blessed Sacrament church to expand our outreach to the community. With our new larger facility we were able to vastly expand our programming and the number of youth we serve. In our new facility we now have a full NCAA regulation-size basketball court, weight room, stage, reading room, computer lab and full kitchen. And with your help our future is limitless!