A Mes­sage from Our CEO & Chair of the Board

June 01, 2020

Dear KYC Community,

In light of the recent protests nation­wide, as the Chief Exec­u­tive Offi­cer and Chair of the Board for Ken­neth Young Cen­ter, we felt it was impor­tant to reach out to you, our sup­port­ers and friends.

KYC’s pro­grams and ser­vices focus on cre­at­ing health­i­er, safer com­mu­ni­ties for us all. We are an agency of inclu­sion, empow­er­ment, and com­pas­sion. Ken­neth Young, from whom we took our agency’s name, was a fierce advo­cate for equal­i­ty and social jus­tice – a lega­cy we hold dear and cen­tral to our cul­ture of diver­si­ty and accep­tance.
This is a scary and emo­tion­al time. COVID-19 con­tin­ues to be a seri­ous glob­al threat to our health, with more than 100,000 Amer­i­cans hav­ing lost their bat­tles to this dev­as­tat­ing dis­ease. This dis­ease has dis­pro­por­tion­ate­ly impact­ed black Amer­i­cans, who are expe­ri­enc­ing dou­ble the mor­tal­i­ty rate of oth­er races. Com­pound­ing these tragedies are the sense­less mur­ders of men and women in our coun­try like George Floyd, Bre­on­na Tay­lor, Ahmaud Aubrey, and too many oth­ers – many of whom we’ll nev­er know by name or life sto­ry. We stand shoul­der-to-shoul­der with our black neigh­bors. Your lives matter. 

Racism, intol­er­ance, hate, and vio­lence have no place in our nation or at KYC. We are proud to stand behind the many first respon­ders who brave­ly work each day to keep our com­mu­ni­ties and res­i­dents safe. Many of our pro­grams rely on the strong rela­tion­ships with police offi­cers ready and will­ing to sup­port and defend our com­mu­ni­ty. We share our deep­est appre­ci­a­tion for them. Our men and women of law enforce­ment are not rep­re­sent­ed by those who har­bor hate and vio­lence.
The diver­si­ty of our pro­grams and clients is one of our great­est strengths. As we process the trau­ma and grief many are expe­ri­enc­ing dur­ing this dif­fi­cult time, please remem­ber that KYC is com­mit­ted to inclu­sion and com­pas­sion. Illi­nois’ Call4Calm text line remains open. Our teams con­tin­ue to work around the clock to sup­port our com­mu­ni­ty. It is OK to not be OK and KYC is here to help. 

Stay well and stay safe,

Grace Hong Duf­fin Dominice LaPorte Einig­Pres­i­dent & CEO Chair of the Board

---

Previous Article Next Article