Join Mercy Home For 2026 Poker Night!!
JOIN MERCY HOME TO CELEBRATE 13 YEARS OF POKER NIGHT!
Join us Thursday, January 29 as we gather for our 13th annual Mercy Home Poker Night!
Back at the Bank of America Tower, overlooking the Chicago River, Poker Night will feature Vegas-style excitement and great Gibsons food. It's the perfect mid-winter night out on the town!
The event features a Texas Hold 'em tournament and charitable gaming, cocktails, hors d'oeuvres, and dinner buffet.
Purchase Your Tickets
You can win big too! The top tournament prize is a $10,000 seat at the World Series of Poker Main Event in Las Vegas. We'll award more than $15,000 in additional prizes as well.
As always, the biggest winners are our kids – proceeds from Poker Night support the young people at Mercy Home.
Don't wait to get in on the action. Buy your ticket today. Our $250 Poker Buy-in goes up to $300 after January 16th. Price for the casino ticket is $150.
Get to know One Family Illinois!
Get to know the story of One Family Illinois, and hear directly from foster parents!
Mercy Home's Annual Lux Gala 2025: Get Your Raffle Tickets Now
It's that time of year again. Time to purchase your Lux Gala raffle tickets and potentially walk away with $25,000! All while supporting a great cause—Mercy Home for Boys & Girls. Your participation will make a difference in the lives of the children and families served by Mercy Home.
Purchase Your Raffle Tickets Now
Tickets are $100. We will only be selling 1,500 tickets, so buy yours while you still can.
Raffle Details
Grand Prize: $25,000
Second Prize: $7,000
Third Prize: $3,000
The raffle winner will be announced at the Lux Gala on Saturday, November 8th. Winner need not be present.
VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. Raffle open to legal US residents 21+ who purchase a raffle ticket. Starts 8/11/25, ends 11/8/25. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received; no more than 1500 tickets will be sold. Total prize ARV: $35,000. Sponsor: Mercy Home for Boys and Girls. For official rules, see bit.ly/2025LuxRaffleRules.
Purchase Your Raffle Tickets Now
Thanks to Our Sponsors!
A new play captures the longing of children in Chicago foster care
Alex in Windyland, running through May 23, 2025 at Filament Theatre, feels authentic because it is: Foster children co-wrote the script and developed the characters.
You can read the original post on WBEZ Chicago’s website here.
The immersive and interactive Alex in Windyland starts when you walk through the front door of Filament Theatre. Someone at a front desk in a railroad cap hands you a key with the ominous tagline, “Expires soon.” You’re told to hold onto the key because the conductor may collect it from you at any moment.
The play, which opens Saturday and runs through May 23, offers an artistic look at the experiences of young people in Chicago’s foster care system — a system that currently is responsible for 2,428 children, according to Illinois Department of Children and Family Services data. Written in collaboration with LYDIA Home, a nonprofit that provides housing for children in the foster system, the production feels authentic because it is: Foster children co-wrote the show and came up with the characters.
Alex in Windyland tells the story of Alex, an 11-year-old girl who gets separated from her younger sister the night before her birthday. After a storm, Alex is taken to a magical, liminal train called Windyland. The play explores her adventures as she learns to navigate the train system — a fantastical allegory for learning to traverse the “in-between” nature of foster care.
“We talk a lot about adoption and the end and the forever home, but we don’t talk about the in-between and the liminal and that these are these kids’ real lives,” said Abby Thompson, the production’s director. “We don’t talk about the realities of what it means to be in that middle space and in that waiting period, and just the reality of the older that you get, the less statistically likely it is that you’ll be adopted, especially males, for a variety of reasons.”
Alex in Windyland tells the story of Alex, an 11-year-old girl who gets separated from her younger sister the night before her birthday.
The play expresses that “in-between” with Alex moving among various cars on the train and building relationships with others. Amid her adventures, she maintains hope she will be reunited with her sister one day.
Professional actors play the characters, but at least one cast member has lived the show’s content. Actress Jade Gray, who plays Alex’s little sister, was removed from her family’s care multiple times throughout her childhood and ended up being adopted at 16. The questions raised by the young characters in the play resonate with her.
“Why you’re being separated from your family? What’s wrong with you? Why does nobody want to take care of you? I think you grow up and you become an adult, and you know, I’m working and I’m professional or whatever,” Gray said. “At the end of the day, those questions still reside deeply in anybody who’s gone through the displacement that youth in the foster care, or people who have been adopted later in life, have gone through.”
At various points in the show, the conductor collects the keys handed out to audience members at the beginning. Actors pull viewers out of their seats throughout multiple points in the show to help with the action on the performance floor.
Foster children co-wrote and created characters for Alex in Windyland.
LYDIA Home declined to allow any children who participated in the show to speak with WBEZ, citing Department of Children and Family Services regulations.
But Imelda Gonzales, a LYDIA Home residential coordinator, said the experiences of the kids she works with were poignantly depicted in the show.
“Our children don’t have a voice. They go through life, just like [the characters] did, believing that they’re lost, they’re forgotten, they’re left behind, and nobody ever comes to pick ‘em up,” Gonzales said, through tears, after a preview performance earlier in the week.
Thompson estimates that, over the two-year creation of the production, she worked with 40 kids on the show. She selected cast members with experience in the foster care system or experience as teaching artists.
The production presents a fantastical allegory for learning to traverse navigate the “in-between” nature of foster care.
One facet of the production is that audiences have opportunities, post-show, to engage with the issue. Organizations that work with foster youth throughout Chicago, such as LYDIA Home and One Hope United, set up tables for conversations with audiences at the end of each show. The goal is for people to learn about opportunities to help children in the foster care system, from volunteering to help give foster parents short breaks to becoming a mentor.
“I try to find mentors so it’s one on one, they can trust adults again, and then I hope that those mentors will stay connected to them, because our children are only with us between six months to a year, depending on their age when they come in,” Gonzales said. “But I’m hoping the mentors will stay with them.”
If you go: Alex in Windyland runs May 17 to May 23 at Filament Theatre, 4041 N. Milwaukee Ave. Tickets are from $25 and available here.
Adora Namigadde is a contributor to WBEZ. Follow up with her on this story at madebyadora@gmail.com
You can read the original post on WBEZ Chicago’s website here.
One Family Illinois' Holiday Giving Program!
One Family Illinois is seeking donations to support our holiday giving program!
In 2024 alone, One Family Illinois (formerly SOS Children’s Villages Illinois) has provided a safe and stable home for 252 children in our Sibling Foster Care program. We are proud to say that 24% of those children have been safely returned home or adopted, and now we are working to make this holiday season special for the children still in our care.
There are a few ways to participate:
Make a donation to go toward Foster Parents purchasing presents for their youth in care
Order items from our Amazon Wish List
Thank you for making the season bright for the children in our care! If you have any questions, please reach out to Rachel Ellicott (rellicott@onefamilyillinois.org) or call our office at 312-372-8200.
Buy Your Mercy Home Lux Raffle Tickets Now!
It's that time of year again - time to purchase your Lux Gala raffle tickets and potentially walk away with $25,000! All while supporting a great cause - your participation will make a difference in the lives of the children and families served by Mercy Home.
Purchase Your Raffle Tickets Now
Tickets are $100 and we will only be selling 1,500 tickets, so buy yours while you still can.
Raffle Details
Grand Prize: $25,000
Second Prize: $7,000
Third Prize: $3,000
The raffle winner will be announced at the Lux Gala on Saturday, November 16th. Winner need not be present.
VOID WHERE PROHIBITED. Open to legal US residents 21+ who purchase a raffle ticket. Starts 8/5/24, ends 11/16/24. Odds of winning depend on the number of eligible entries received; no more than 1500 tickets will be sold. Total prize ARV: $35,000. Sponsor: Mercy Home for Boys and Girls. For official rules, see https://bit.ly/LuxRaffle2024.
Chicago Foundlings Home celebrates 50th Anniversary of the RUSH Adolescent Family Center
The Chicago Foundlings Home was delighted to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the RUSH Adolescent Family Center on October 23! Forward thinking for it’s time and now the blueprint for many Family Centers across the United States, see below a beautiful video put together by the RUSH team to commemorate this wonderful milestone!
SOS Children’s Villages Illinois is now One Family Illinois!
On July 1, 2024, SOS Children’s Villages Illinois transitioned to a new name and identity, One Family Illinois.
While the name has changed, their services, approaches, and commitment to excellence remain the same. One Family Illinois (formerly SOS Children’s Villages Illinois), founded over 30 years ago, helps children and youth in the child welfare system and their families to heal, thrive, and achieve permanency goals.
The Chicago Foundlings Home looks forward to supporting One Family Illinois and together we will continue to make a meaningful difference in many, many lives.
Grant Focuses on Keeping Child Welfare Workers
Jane Addams College of Social Work Assistant Professor Michelle-Ann Rhoden Neita is serving as co-Principal Investigator on a $200,648 grant from the Florida Institute for Child Welfare (FICW) to develop approaches on keeping social workers in the child-welfare field.
The grant, titled “Empowering Child Welfare (ECW) Workforce: Supporting Child Welfare Student Interns and Agency Supervisors through Group Supervision, Tuition Sponsorship, and Stipend”, has two goals: Produce an instructional manual on how to conduct group supervision among student interns and agency supervisors; and create a model for providing student interns with clinical support that involves the collaboration between the university and agencies.
“Turnover among child welfare workers is prevalent and can negatively affect the outcomes of children and families in the child welfare system,” said Rhoden Neita, MSW, PhD, LCSW. “Existing interventions to address turnover focus on either supporting prospective child welfare workers at their post-secondary education or changing child welfare agencies through organization interventions.
“There are gaps in the existing interventions. Our project intends to address those gaps.”
Rhoden Neita and her colleagues will develop a three-pronged approach to reach the grant’s goals: Provide tuition and stipends for student interns working in child welfare agencies; conduct supervision focused on skills building and critical thinking for interns every two weeks; and conduct supportive group supervision for agency supervisors each month.
“We believe that participants’ positive experiences with the ECW project will be associated with less stigma towards child welfare-involved parents, less secondary traumatic stress, higher levels of self-efficacy and empowerment, and higher levels of intention to remain in the child-welfare field,” Rhoden Neita said.
december 19 2022
Mentor Makes A Lifelong Friend: Mercy Home
Click here for the original article on the Mercy Home website.
Life has an interesting way of pulling us in the direction of serving others, whether that’s helping a family member or friend, holding the door for a stranger, or mentoring a young person.
Julia Brady moved to Chicago nearly three decades ago to attend graduate school at the University of Chicago. She yearned to make a difference in her community, specifically by helping children. But she had no idea that her path would lead her to a lifelong friendship.
“Giving back, it’s always been important to me,” she said. “[So has] mentoring and thinking about how I can help younger kids and be there for them.”
Education was important to Julia, and she wanted to help kids succeed in school. So, she volunteered once a week with the Junior Achievement program in Chicago. Not only was she tutoring kids, but she enjoyed connecting with them.
…I’ve learned that I could love a child who was not my own…I’d like to think I helped her [with her confidence and] finding her place in the world…
Chicago felt more like home each day. She enjoyed helping nurture kids’ intellects and build meaningful relationships.
But Julia saw there were more opportunities to give back to kids in Chicago.
“I started looking at mentoring programs… and there was an activities fair at the church I attended, [where] I first learned about Mercy Home,” Brady recalled.
When she learned about Mercy Home’s Friends First Mentoring program, she was interested because it was flexible with her work schedule, and program staff provided unlimited support throughout the program.
She knew this was the perfect opportunity to make a positive impact on a child’s life.
Before she was paired with a mentee, she attended a training course at Mercy Home. In the training, they asked the future mentors: “Who mentored you?”
Brady reflected on the piano teacher who made an impact on her life.
“I had a piano teacher from the time I was 6 until age 11. That’s the one adult I had at a young age that really knew me in ways that other people didn’t,” she said. “I was creative at the time and would write music that I would never share. But she encouraged [me to continue to write music and share it.]”
Young Carissa on the right and Julia on the left
Carissa on the left and Julia on the right
After completing the Mercy Home mentor training, Brady was paired with a 10-year-old girl named Carissa Moorehead. They both wanted to explore the many fun attractions that Chicago has to offer.
Moorehead lived with her two sisters, and her older brother, at their grandmother’s house. And because the two would be spending a lot of time together, Brady wanted to get to know her family.
“I remember getting to know her family and her grandmother and just spending time at her grandmother’s house,” Brady said. “When I’d often go to pick her up… I’d usually spend a little time connecting with her grandmother [and] getting to know her younger sisters.”
“My grandmother loved her. She delved into our lives, and I was able to experience some of the things she really valued,” Moorhead said.
Their special bond blossomed as they visited museums and parks, watched the Chicago Air and Water Show, rode bikes on the beautiful lakefront path, and baked tasty treats.
“I was always excited to go out with her because [we went on] different adventures that I wasn’t able to have with my grandma,” Moorehead said.
But Brady also wanted to show her mentee the importance of helping those in need.
“[She] valued charity work. We would organize clothes and things to give away to people in the community who needed [them],” Moorhead remembered.
Brady recalled a special moment that occurred after she had dropped Moorhead off at her grandmother’s.
“And I’ll never forget once leaving her grandmother’s house,” Brady said. “I brought Carissa home and her dad was coming in… he [said], ‘thank you for all you do for my daughter’ to me. I felt a part of her extended family and was grateful for his support of my friendship with his daughter.”
Brady reflected on how much she gained from their experiences together.
“I’ve learned that I could love a child who was not my own, that I had no biological connection to… [and], I’d like to think I helped her [with her confidence and] finding her place in the world,” she said
Moorehead recalls how Brady helped her with her confidence at an early age.
“I was a super shy and timid middle schooler. She helped bring me out of my shell.”
Despite their several years-long mentorship ending, their friendship carried on throughout the years to follow. Occasionally, they will email each other, and last February they spent time catching up.
“Julia was my big sister… I attended her wedding [years ago],” Moorhead said. “When my sisters and I talk about our childhood, we talk about the experiences that we had with our Friends First mentors.”
When my sisters and I talk about our childhood, we talk about the experiences that we had with our Friends First mentors.
Moorehead is grown up now. She graduated from Southern Illinois University and was an assistant principal and educator for nine years in elementary and middle schools.
Brady had such a positive impact on Mooreheads’ life that she wants to mentor a child in need.
“I’m interested in pursuing mentorship and having a mentee of my own because of the experience that I was able to have through Mercy Home, and how meaningful it was to me,” Moorehead said.
Brady encourages anyone who wants to make a difference in a child’s life to become a Friends First mentor with Mercy Home.
“Being a Friends First Mentor is a wonderful experience. It’s a great way to connect with Chicago’s young people in need. You’ll be investing in the future of our city and will get so much more in return,” she said.