Community Investment
Franczek Radelet emphasizes the importance of contributing financial and human resources to our local community. The firm enlists a partner as its Community Investment Officer to coordinate the philanthropic, charitable service and pro bono activities of the firm. Through our “giving back” to our community, we have grown as professionals and, more importantly, we have grown as individuals through the fulfillment that can only come through helping others.
For more information regarding the firm's community investment initiatives, please contact Firm Community Investment Officer Dawn Spivey Moritz via e-mail or call 312.786.6582.
Franczek Radelet Community Investment Initiatives
Partnership with CPS School
Franczek Radelet enjoys a partnership with a Chicago Public School, Dvorak Math Science Technology Academy. The firm has supported Dvorak Academy in a number of ways over the past few years, including participating as the school’s corporate sponsor for the CPS Principal For a Day program, donating school supplies and eyeglasses, catering an appreciation breakfast for faculty and staff, visiting the school’s open house, and participating in the CPS Science Day program. We are impressed by the work of the administration, faculty, staff, students, and community in creating a vibrant school of lifelong learners, and we are extremely proud to be a corporate partner in their educational endeavors.
On October 30, 2008, the firm sent a team of six attorneys to serve as "Principals" at Dvorak, as part of the CPS Principals For A Day program. We enjoyed a truly delightful morning! First, administrators, faculty and community volunteers treated us to a hot breakfast, musical talents and slideshow presentation about the school and their new technology grant. Next, Principal Thompson had us present the Pledge of Allegiance and other morning announcements over the intercom. After a tour of the school, we split up and each visited a classroom where we talked to older students about career opportunities or read stories with younger students. We enjoyed meeting the students and staff and furthering our relationship with Dvorak. The school's new Web site also boasts information and pictures about our time together.
Franczek Radelet hosts an internal annual school supply drive to support the students of Dvorak Academy. In September 2008, we were pleased to provide Dvorak with 20 boxes of school supplies for Dvorak students, including 33 sturdy book bags, 151 notebooks, 72 packages of pens, 185 two-pocket folders, and a host of paper, pencils, crayons, markers, calculators, protractors, dictionaries, staplers, rulers, construction paper and other supplies. This year, we also hosted a Dvorak Local School Council member and parent who brought her son to a luncheon where we collected the school supplies. Mother and son impressed and warmed the hearts of our employees as they spoke of their experience at Dvorak and appreciation for the firm's support. Our interactions with Dvorak Academy bolster an appreciation for the unique challenges of urban education and the remarkable ability of dedicated principals, teachers and staff to impact positively the lives of children.
Every winter holiday season, Franczek Radelet provides donations through My Joyful Heart Foundation to students of Dvorak Academy. In December 2008, the firm sponsored twenty-four Dvorak students by going shopping and providing the clothes, blankets, books and toys on the child’s individual wish list. Members of the firm – collectively and individually – sponsored an additional twelve students for the entire year so that their school supply, clothing and toiletry needs are met, as well as providing gifts for their birthdays and holidays year-round.
Franczek Radelet Service Projects
Franczek Radelet's summer service project is through the Chicago Cares Serve-A-Thon. Team Franczek joins approximately 8,000 Chicagoans for the annual full-day service event to provide much-needed service to our City’s schools, parks and social service agencies. In June 2008, firm volunteers spent the day at Ninos Heroes Academy for Learners where they created incredible wall murals designed to encourage reading and to curb violence and also repainted the steel railings and concrete steps in the school’s stairwells. In June 2007, a busload of Franczek Radelet volunteers contributed the day’s effort to painting a Chicago Public School, Lakeview High School.
Franczek Radelet's traditional fall service project is to volunteer at the Greater Chicago Food Depository. For example, in 2006, firm volunteers learned how to “glean produce.” That is, we reviewed individual pieces of cucumbers, zucchini, avocados and peppers to sort the “good” from the “bad” from box after box of donations by produce distributors in order to provide the “good” stuff to local agencies to distribute in their fight against hunger. Our worthwhile work was messy, stinky, slimy and rancid, but we had a great deal of fun and managed to refrain from starting any food-fights. Most important, firm volunteers processed 9,000 pounds of produce! Other years have witnessed firm volunteers processing and packaging 2,720 pounds of pretzels and pounds and pounds of beans, all for distribution to local food pantries, homeless shelters and agencies.
Franczek Radelet frequently participates in the annual Women Everywhere service project, joining hundreds of others from the legal community who have chosen to give back to the community by devoting part or all of a workday to helping out at a community service agency dedicated to serving women and children in need. For example, firm volunteers have performed yard work and painting at local women’s shelters on the south side and in Bucktown, through the Chicago Abused Women Coalition.
Over the years, Franczek Radelet has sponsored other important events, such as: renovation projects at Gilda's Club Chicago, a support community for men, women and children living with cancer, and their families; hosting a donation drive for tsunami victims; sponsoring a “Jeans Day” donation drive to the McCormick Tribune Foundation Hurricane Katrina Relief Campaign; organizing a “Jeans Day” donation drive to support the fight against breast cancer; donating children’s gloves, hats, coats and scarves to the All You Need Is (G)love program; donating eyeglasses; coordinating an organ drive for employees through Donate Life Illinois; and much more.
Pro Bono and Charitable Contributions
Franczek Radelet sponsors fundraiser events of the Pro Bono Institute’s Public Interest Law Initiative to honor and support public service and pro bono work.
Attorneys contribute pro bono legal services for court-appointed cases, through agencies and for not-for-profit corporations.
Franczek Radelet provides generous financial contributions to charitable organizations, education foundations and organizations providing legal services to persons of limited means. The firm is a proud contributor each winter to the Lawyers Lend-A-Hand to Youth Sun-Times Judge Marovitz Program (affiliated with the Chicago Bar Association and other organizations) by coordinating donations of gloves, hats, scarves and coats for needy children in Chicagoland. http://www.coats-for-kids.org
Individual Franczek Radelet employees remain active on numerous boards of directors of not-for-profit corporations, serve on committees and commissions, volunteer in reading programs, soup kitchens and other charitable works, and participate in their churches, synagogues and local community service organizations.
Green Initiatives at Franczek Radelet
Franczek Radelet is very excited to announce its Green Initiative. The firm is committed to reducing its effect on the environment and our Green Initiative Committee has been hard at work to find innovative ways for the firm to conserve, re-use and recycle.
We have already replaced many of our consumable goods with compostable and recyclable alternatives. The firm has switched from bulky plastic cups, utensils and other kitchen products to corn and potato-based compostable products that quickly break down in a landfill. And we make sure our everyday office supplies, such as copy paper, legal pads, envelopes, and even our batteries and are made from recyclable materials wherever possible. The Green Initiative Committee is also bringing additional recycling measures to the office to make sure all recyclable products find their way to a recycle center, and will soon be putting energy-saving practices into place at the office.
We believe that our environment is a part of our future and are committed to implementing new ways to make sure our impact, is nothing but a positive one.
For more information regarding the firm’s Green Initiative, please contact Mark Wilkinson at msw@franczek.com or call 312.786.6171.