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Looking to the Future: Honoring Our Sacred Pledge

A Statement from Raul Garza, Aunt Martha’s President and CEO

July 2, 2021

The Fourth of July holiday offers each of us an opportunity – amid the all-too-familiar bustle of our re-opening world – to pause, to exhale. It is the ultimate personal freedom, the freedom of allowing ourselves to relax, even if just briefly, and to free our minds from the complications of these difficult times. I hope that each of you can find this time for yourselves over the next few days.

If you do allow your mind a moment to wander, you might consider that it was 50 years ago – the summer of 1971 – when the Village of Park Forest trustees passed a budget that included funds for a new position. At the recommendation of its Youth Commission (which still exists today), the Village had agreed to hire a Youth Worker. The young man they hired was Gary Leofanti. Those were the seeds of Aunt Martha’s. It is a story we look forward to sharing more of as we approach the 50th anniversary of our founding. Today, however, just as it has always been the spirit of our organization, Aunt Martha’s is excited to look to the future.

We are moving ahead vigorously with new partnerships, making rapid progress to bring to market new ways of caring for our most vulnerable youth and address the social determinants of health, and continuing our pursuit of racial, social and health equity. The efforts we are focused on today, which we will see through this summer, include:

Creating new and better access to health care services by furthering our commitment to underserved communities on the Northwest Side of Chicago and bringing Aunt Martha’s integrated model of care to our newest hospital-based clinic, on-site at Peoria’s OSF Saint Francis Medical Center.

Designing and implementing new ways of caring for the most high-risk youth in our foster care system. No youth should have to languish in a placement that is more restrictive than is necessary to protect their safety. The step-down program we are developing will provide a safe environment for youth in the care of Aunt Martha’s Integrated Care Center who are prepared to move to less restrictive, more home-like setting until they can transition to a more permanent placement. The program will also offer aftercare services to support youth even after they transition out of our direct care.

And, in collaboration with Illinois’ Medicaid Managed Care Organizations, we are preparing to launch a series of value-based initiatives aimed at addressing the social determinants of health in some of the state’s most underserved communities. These efforts will be led at the local level and flexible enough to both accommodate the unique needs and capitalize on each community’s untapped strengths.

There are more than 800 Aunt Martha’s employees at the heart of each of these efforts. They work tirelessly for the people and communities they serve, and Aunt Martha’s, from the Board of Directors, to my office and in every part of our administration is never less than 100% committed to working tirelessly to support their tremendous work. The level of engagement we have achieved – in the face the chaos of the pandemic – has fueled our enthusiasm and our growth. It is part of what inspires to do more for our employees and those we serve. According to our internal, 12-month retrospective survey:

95% of Aunt Martha’s employees were more than satisfied and satisfied with the organization’s response to the pandemic.

92% of Aunt Martha’s employees believed their safety was a priority in the organization’s decisions during the pandemic. I believe we need to do better.

93% of our employees are more than satisfied and satisfied with the support and resources the organization provides. That same number also feels the organization took steps to positively impact their work-life balance during the pandemic. In both cases, I believe we need to do better.

We can do better and we can do more. This includes our work as an advocate for racial, social and health equity – within our organization, in the communities we serve and in the communities we call home. We have made clear our willingness to denounce those individuals and organizations whose own efforts (or lack thereof) stand in the way of justice and equity. We are also cognizant that our ability to serve as an advocate requires that our own house be kept in order. This is why we continue, as we must always, to look inward, to unearth and exorcise past biases, to educate ourselves and develop new approaches to our work. That effort, for any individual or organization, represents the promise of both the past and the future.

Please enjoy the spirit of the holiday weekend. Please celebrate safely. And consider for a moment the world we might create if we make our goal the fulfillment of the Declaration’s ultimate pledge of “our sacred Honor” to one another.

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Recognizing Juneteenth, Father’s Day

A Statement from Raul Garza, President and CEO

June 17, 2021

Today, President Biden took the historic step of signing into law legislation to create a federal holiday to commemorate Juneteenth, the day marking the end of slavery in Texas, and celebrated as the end of slavery in the United States. It is a date that is perhaps a more important milestone in our country’s history than July 4, 1776. Yet it took nothing less than the summer of 2020, the tragedy of George Floyd’s murder and the social uprisings that followed, to bring renewed attention to a day that is at once a celebration of freedom and hope, as well as a reminder that we are called to make better the society we inherit from our mothers and our fathers. Read more…

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Federal Review Demonstrates Impact, Compassion and Commitment of Employees

A Statement from Raul Garza, President and CEO

May 13, 2021

This week, Aunt Martha’s was the subject of an Operational Site Visit (OSV) conducted by a team of reviewers from the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), the primary federal funder of our health care services. These visits provide an objective assessment and verification of the status of each Health Center Program awardee or look-alike’s compliance with the statutory and regulatory requirements of the Health Center Program.

The results of the OSV, Aunt Martha’s first since 2017, were presented to members of our board of directors, our executive and health leadership teams during our closing session with the reviewers this morning. In all, 22 areas of our Health Division’s administrative and operational policies, procedures and practices were reviewed against 95 distinct elements of compliance. The review team shared that the average community health center comes away from an OSV with about 7 findings or requirements for improvement. Four years ago, our OSV resulted in 5 findings. I am pleased and proud to report that the OSV conducted this week concluded with a preliminary report of only 3 findings – a 97% compliance rate. Read more…

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Vision, Investment and Value 

A Statement from Raul Garza, President and CEO 

April 20, 2021 

I wrote in January – and at other times – how integration and collaboration would drive the opportunities our organization chooses to pursue. The reason for that is simple. VALUE. If creating value is our goal (and it is), integration and collaboration are the means by which we will achieve it. Over the last several months, we’ve used this mindset to set Aunt Martha’s course for the period beyond the crisis of COVID-19. When it was announced in late March that the American Rescue Plan Act includes more than $6 billion in funding for community health centers, we saw an opportunity to reimagine the scope of our vision. Read more…

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Educating Ourselves. Educating Our Community.

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

March 5, 2021

According to the state’s Department of Public Health, White people received close to 70% of the 2.76 million COVID-19 vaccination doses that were administered in Illinois through February 28. Even in the most equitable distribution scenarios, the introduction of a third, single-dose vaccine will not on its own significantly alter the math that shows Whites being vaccinated at a rate 9 times that of Illinois’ Black and Latino communities. The fundamental challenge – as issues of supply and local accessibility are overcome – is one of demand. Demand, that is, among those individuals and groups who are both: a) at a higher risk of infection, as Latinos have been, or death or serious complication, as African Americans have been; and b) highly hesitant about taking the vaccine that might be the difference between life and death.

This is a challenge of building and rebuilding trust. It is a challenge that Aunt Martha’s is proud to own. Our plan, as we have seen played out since early December, is to deliver clear and consistent communication with messaging that builds trust, acknowledges historic reasons for mistrust and dispels myths and misinformation in the communities that have been hit hardest by COVID-19. Read more…

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A Family’s Thanks and a Call to Action

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

February 12, 2021

In the past week I have received emails from no fewer than 200 friends and colleagues offering condolences to my family and I following my father’s recent passing. Your kind words and wishes have meant a great deal to me. They have meant so much, in fact, that I thought they might also be a source of comfort to my mother. I shared them when I visited her yesterday. She was touched, as my entire family has been. Read more…

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Hope from Heartbreak: The Importance of  COVID-19 Vaccination

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

February 5, 2021

Dear Friends and Colleagues:

On Tuesday of this week I lost my father to COVID-19. He was 82 years old, had survived a stroke a dozen years ago and beaten Leukemia in the years since. It was only in the past seven years or so that I grew very close to my dad. He was my confidant, often consoling but more often offering counsel through challenges, including my work at Aunt Martha’s. My dad got his COVID-19 diagnosis on New Year’s Eve. He was hospitalized and after eight days was released, appearing to have overcome the virus that overtook him Tuesday. Yes, you could say that he lived a full life, but he had more living to do. Read more…

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Integration and Collaboration Drive New Opportunities

January 15, 2021

Among its many effects, the COVID-19 pandemic has shed powerful light on our society’s failures. Chief among those failures is the disturbing reality of disparity sown in every effort that enables or contributes to systemic inequities and exclusions. We see, every day, stark examples of the carefully constructed, morally corrupt relationship between poverty, race, life and death in our country. We see people of color – especially those living in low-income households – continue to bear the worst effects of COVID-19 itself and its economic fallout. According to a recent report from the Congressional Research Service, the highest rates of employment-related income loss have been among Hispanics, where an estimated 58% of households have lost employment income since March. About half of African American households are estimated to have lost employment income. The largest portion of households to lose employment income were low-income homes with children.

These are the most vulnerable members of our communities. These are the people Aunt Martha’s is proud to serve, more than 77,000 children and adults in 2020, including 12,000 who came to us for the first time. In all, we provided nearly a quarter of a million visits, a 20% increase in just two years. That growth is a testament to the depth of the needs in the communities we serve and to the substance and scope of the response we are prepared to offer. In the first months of the New Year, we will do more. Read more…

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The Mark of a Year so Difficult to Leave Behind

December 30, 2020

Though we may try, it will not be an easy task to turn the page on 2020. It is perhaps, one of the enduring ironies of a year that begs like no other to be left behind. The year has tested our patience, tried our resolve and revealed our character. Its mark is indelible, both for better and for worse. At Aunt Martha’s we choose to learn from the latter and to celebrate the former. We choose to learn, to recognize the wisdom of self-reflection and to seize every opportunity to right the errors of the past. We choose to celebrate the work done well, the small victories as much as the large, and the next step forward. We choose to act.

Our perspective is reflected in our approach to the events of 2020, but its roots are embedded, foundational elements of our organizational strategy and design. Read more…

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A Letter to Aunt Martha’s Employees from the Board of Directors

December 11, 2020

To All Aunt Martha’s Employees:

Fearless and compassionate. These words were repeated on several occasions when Aunt Martha’s Board of Directors convened earlier this week for our final scheduled meeting of 2020.

Fearless and compassionate. This is how the Board of Directors characterized Aunt Martha’s response – your response – to every challenge 2020 has mustered. You stood on the frontline in a global pandemic and on the frontline of the fight against racism and inequity. You stood and continue to stand, in our perspective, as heroes and as examples of what is right. Read more…

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Celebrating the Diligence and Determination of our Employees

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

November 20, 2020

Every seven seconds another Illinois resident is confirmed positive for COVID-19.1 This week Illinois has averaged more than 12,100 new cases per day, a 2-week increase of 58% and a 3-week spike of 133%. According to Center for Systems Science and Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, the data confirms the worst. The plain fact is that COVID-19 is spreading unchecked through our communities.

At Aunt Martha’s, where our frontline staff have unflinchingly faced every challenge the coronavirus has spawned, we have been fortunate to have experienced comparatively low positivity rates. That good fortune is less the result of circumstance and more the result of individual diligence, discipline and organizational design. It is, first and foremost, the result of a conscious, continuous effort – on the part of more than 800 employees – to do the right things to protect one another as well as those we serve. Read more…

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Innovating and Investing in a Time of Crisis

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

October 21, 2020

In a time of crisis, Aunt Martha’s chose to stand up and speak out about the racial and social injustices that too many of our patients and clients, our parents and our children, our employees, our coworkers and colleagues continue to endure. We chose to challenge our peers to become more diverse at all levels, and to advocate for true change. There is progress, but the time has come for strides rather than mere steps. And in this time of crisis – inspired and driven by the courage and commitment of our employees – Aunt Martha’s chose to innovate, to invest in the immediate and ongoing needs of the hundreds of communities we serve. Read more…

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Exposing Racism in All Forms

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

September 21, 2020

I write today because you have always known me to be transparent with you about organizational issues Aunt Martha’s is facing, including at times what our leaders are experiencing personally. Aunt Martha’s has never hesitated, in its history of close to 50 years, to stand up against injustice in any form, in any forum or in any community. Over the past four months, I have written extensively to audiences both personal and public about our clear stance and commitment to racial and social justice. Many of our employees have also expressed their concern and their disgust with the level of inequity that exists within certain outside entities, and it has been my pledge to continue to take this fight to any and all arenas where it is necessary. To meet that commitment, I – and we – must be willing to challenge, even confront those among us who might hear our words but fail to heed our message. Read more…

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New Support in Our Fight Against Racism, Discrimination in the Village of Midlothian and the Battle Against COVID-19

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

August 17, 2020

Backed by a $5 million donation from The Oprah Winfrey Charitable Foundation, the Live Healthy Chicago collaborative informed Aunt Martha’s last week of a $50,000 grant award to offset a portion of the cost of the negative air pressure system installed in April at our Children’s Quarantine Center (CQC). The CQC represents Aunt Martha’s response to calls from DCFS for agencies with the capacity to safely care for youth in the first weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. In fact, it is the state’s only facility designed to care specifically for foster children whose living situation is disrupted by COVID-19. Read more…

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Reflecting on our Shared Journey

Excerpt from a Memo to Aunt Martha’s Employees from Raul Garza, President & CEO

July 2, 2020

On Tuesday, June 30, I published a statement following that days hearing before the US District Court in Aunt Martha’s discrimination suit against the Village of Midlothian. The judge had extended the emergency temporary restraining order that prevents the Village from shutting down our Children’s Quarantine Center. The individuals representing the Village, however, have never been more transparent in either their desire or intent to shutter the CQC. They couch their motives in a message of public safety. But let me be absolutely clear. The protection they seek is not protection from a virus. They are fighting to keep diversity out of their community. Read more…

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A Statement from Raul Garza, President and CEO, on Aunt Martha’s Continued Stand Against Racism and Against the Discriminatory Practices in the Village of Midlothian

June 30, 2020

Last month, in the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic and a level of racial and social upheaval our country has not witnessed in a generation, Aunt Martha’s filed a federal discrimination lawsuit against the Village of Midlothian for violating the Fair Housing Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act and the Rehabilitation Act in an effort to shutter the state’s first children’s quarantine center for DCFS youth affected by the COVID-19 pandemic…. This discrimination case has been and continues to be one of fairness. It is, at its core, the issue we are all challenged to confront and represents the systemic inequities we have allowed to become so deeply entrenched in our society and, at our own fault, in our own communities. Read more…

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Juneteenth, the Supreme Court and Living up to our Ideals

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

June 19, 2020

Today, June 19 – or Juneteenth – commemorates the freedom of the last Black slaves in America. It has been 155 years since the date was first recognized in 1865. As recent events have demonstrated, our country and each of us as individuals still have a great deal of work to do in the name of equality and justice. It is a day to reflect on the type of country we are, and the type of country and the type of people we must still strive to become. Read more…

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A Landmark Decision for Diversity and Inclusion

Excerpt from a Memo to Aunt Martha’s Employees from Raul Garza, President & CEO

June 15, 2020

I have mentioned the work being done to restructure the design of our orgnization to best support our employees and thrive in the new reality of COVID-19; and, more importantly, strengthen our ability to contribute to a social environment of racial equity and justice. I am pleased to report that we have completed the design phase of that effort. Now, we must all go to work. The changes we make and the work we do together will represent an extension of our collective fight against the racial and social injustices faced by so many members of the communities we serve. Read more…

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A Continued Call-to-Action

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

June 12, 2020

In calendar year 2019, more than 70 percent of the patients and clients who turned to Aunt Martha’s were people of color. One-third of those we served identified themselves as being Hispanic or Latino in ethnicity. More than half (55 percent) identified themselves as African American.

These numbers are more than statistics. They represent this organization’s commitment – your commitment – to serving and to caring for those who historically have been underserved at best, and often left to fend entirely for themselves. They also represent Aunt Martha’s. They represent you and I. Today, for the first time in its proud history, Aunt Martha’s has people of color serving in the roles of both CEO and Chief Operating Officer. Overall, more than 75 percent of the agency’s staff (including close to 60 percent at the leadership level) are people of color, representing and reflecting at every level of the organization the experiences and challenges faced every day by the people we serve. Read more…

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We Stand Against Racial Injustice

A Statement from Raul Garza, President & CEO

May 31, 2020

The overt acts of racism that have occurred across our country over the past few weeks are truly disturbing. The tragic events that have been covered extensively by the media recently are truly some of the worst examples, but they are not the only racist events that have occurred in the past month, past week, or even the past day. Racism of varying degrees occurs every minute of every day – some with tragic outcomes such as the heartbreaking cases of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery. May they both rest in peace.

Although the internet and social media has, at times, allowed racism to be more readily exposed, racism in our country is not a new reality. The dark history of mistreatment of people who are perceived to be “different” than those in power has scarred this country and all who call it home. The disadvantages created by the vicious cycle of historic and ever-present racism is immense. And the COVID-19 pandemic has only intensified the inequalities that already existed. Read more…