Highland Park Neighbors Magazine Articles

Highland Park Community Foundation Grantees at Work

Every year, Highland Park Community Foundation (HPCF) awards grants to nonprofit organizations dedicated to addressing unmet needs throughout Highland Park and Highwood. These grants support vital programs in five focus areas: creative & cultural arts, education, human services, senior services, and services for individuals with disabilities.

Human services—HPCF’s largest grant funding area—covers a wide range of needs, including mental health care, substance abuse prevention, and food insecurity. The programs we fund play a critical role in helping residents find stability and thrive. HPCF is proud to support organizations that place mental health at the center of their mission and work to eliminate barriers to care, including Family Service of Glencoe, Cancer Wellness Center, Art Impact Project, Josselyn, and Willow House.

Family Service of Glencoe

Founded more than 100 years ago in the wake of a house fire, Family Service of Glencoe (FSG) has long provided direct support to those in crisis. While it continues to partner with Glencoe Public Safety to respond to house fires, FSG has expanded its mission to make mental health care a cornerstone of its services. “Due to our history rooted in crisis response,” explained Amber Bond, Executive Director, “we see the whole client and can work to address the social determinants of mental health in addition to providing direct therapy.”

Thanks to HPCF’s support, FSG has been able to open its doors even wider to Highland Park and Highwood residents who are uninsured or underinsured. “We offer a sliding fee scale that can go as low as $5 based on income,” Amber added. “We’ve also been able to expand our Spanish-speaking services by adding another Spanish-speaking clinician. HPCF’s grants help ensure that our services are accessible to anyone in the community who needs them.”

Cancer Wellness Center

Launched in 1989 as a volunteer-led initiative, Cancer Wellness Center has supported Highland Park and Highwood residents for 36 years. Highland Park resident Patsy Winicour, along with two friends, founded the Center to address the emotional toll that cancer takes on patients and their families, creating a space focused on mental wellbeing.

Cancer Wellness Center pioneered Illinois’s first cancer support hotline and two cancer support groups—both the first of their kind—which has since evolved into a robust operation offering professional counseling, support groups, educational workshops, nutritional services, and wellness classes. Today, it serves over 2,000 individuals annually.

“HPCF has been a tremendous support,” said Michelle Maer, Director of Development. “Beyond the financial assistance, which has allowed us to support more Highland Park and Highwood residents, the resources that we have access to and the network that we are connected to through the Foundation have really opened up a lot of other opportunities.”

Art Impact Project

Founded as a 501(c)(3) in 2014 by Lake Forest resident Vickie Marasco, Art Impact Project combines creativity and compassion to support mental health—particularly for adolescents struggling with emotional wellness and navigating substance abuse recovery. Through guided art-based programming, participants are encouraged to express themselves and process their emotions through art, especially when words fall short.

Although its roots are in substance abuse support, the organization has responded to broader community needs. In the aftermath of the 2022 Highland Park shooting, Art Impact Project partnered with The Art Center Highland Park to provide healing through creativity. That effort evolved into Knitting Communities Together, a twice-monthly knitting program that brings residents impacted by the shooting together in a safe, supportive environment. This knitting program marked Art Impact Project’s first grant from HPCF.

In their 2023 program year, they supported 1,520 teens and more than 200 adults. Last year, they saw a 27% increase in adolescent service participation and more than double the number of adults and seniors served in the previous year. “A big part of our growth has to do with organizational capacity,” said Liz Fales, Executive Director. “We now have two full-time staff, which allows us to deliver regular, consistent programming with our partners. The timing of HPCF’s support has been critical in helping us meet growing community demand.”

Josselyn

Since 1951, Josselyn has been delivering quality, accessible mental health care— including therapy, psychiatry, and other specialized services—throughout the North Shore. With clinics in Grayslake, Highland Park, Northbrook, Northfield, and Waukegan, its certified Community Mental Health Centers now serve nearly 8,000 clients across 300 communities, improving lives every day.

Josselyn is deeply rooted in the Highland Park-Highwood community, particularly through their consolidation with Family Service of Lake County. “Since the consolidation, we’ve expanded our clinical staff at that location from just two therapists to a team of over a dozen therapists and interns,” said Ami Campbell, Josselyn’s Chief Growth Officer. “As a result, the number of active clients we serve has grown from about 60 to more than 300.”

The organization has also recently expanded their Nuestro Josselyn program—taking it from a tutoring program into a more comprehensive offering that includes social-emotional learning and art therapy—enriching its support for youth and families in Highland Park and Highwood.

In the wake of the Highland Park shooting, Josselyn played a vital role in our community’s crisis response. “It was a deeply meaningful opportunity to provide care during a time of such need,” Ami said. “We remain grateful to be part of a resilient community, and we are committed to continuing as a trusted mental health resource here.”

Reflecting on Josselyn’s relationship with HPCF, Ami added, “HPCF grants have played a pivotal role in helping us expand services in Highland Park and Highwood. Thanks to the Board’s support, we’ve been able to increase our clinical capacity, serve more clients, and enhance clinical supervision to ensure timely, high-quality care. Beyond funding, HPCF has also connected us with other community partners—strengthening collaboration and amplifying our collective impact.”

Willow House

Since 1998, Willow House has provided grief support and education for youth, families, schools, and other communities grieving the death of a parent, sibling, or child. What began with a Peer Support Group has grown to include a Survivors of Suicide Support Group, an Expressive Arts program, and specialized services for schools and community groups. In 2023, Willow House expanded further by launching a new Peer Support Group in Northern Lake County, extending their reach and bringing their total to five locations.

Willow House received its first grant from HPCF in 2022. Over the past three years, the organization has continued to grow its impact with support from the Foundation. “The generosity of HPCF has funded our capacity to offer a wide variety of grief-informed support opportunities to grieving families in Highland Park and Highwood,” said Anya Tanyavutti, Executive Director. “It’s been an honor to be a steward of these impactful dollars in service to grieving families and institutions in need of best-practice-informed grief support and care. The Foundation is an incredible partner in its relationship and deep knowledge of this community, and it has been our honor to be included as a partner in having a positive impact.”

Since the partnership began, Willow House has served 178 Highland Park and Highwood residents and institutions through its Peer Support Groups, Expressive Arts program, and Survivors of Suicide group. The organization has also expanded its reach with the development of Spanish-language grief resources, ensuring more families have access to meaningful impactful support.

Community Impact

Residents of the Highland Park-Highwood community rely on trusted organizations like Family Service of Glencoe, Cancer Wellness Center, Art Impact Project, Josselyn, and Willow House for accessible, high-quality mental health care and support. HPCF is honored to fund these organizations through our annual grants, and we look forward to their continued positive impact throughout the community.