Author: andrew

Legacy Giving

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Leave a Legacy of Housing, Care, and Hope

For many friends of Cornerstone Community Outreach, generosity is not only about meeting urgent needs today. It is also about helping ensure that families and individuals experiencing homelessness will continue to find housing, care, dignity, and a pathway toward home for years to come.

A legacy gift allows you to make a lasting impact through your financial and estate planning. These gifts can help sustain Cornerstone’s mission into the future while honoring your values, caring for your loved ones, and supporting work that matters deeply to you.

Meaningful Ways to Leave a Legacy

There are several ways to include Cornerstone in your long-term giving plans:

A Gift in Your Will or Trust

One of the simplest ways to make a legacy gift is to name Cornerstone Community Outreach as a beneficiary in your will or trust. This can be done as:

  • A percentage of your estate
  • A specific dollar amount
  • A remainder gift after other distributions are made

This type of gift allows you to care for your family first while also extending your generosity to help neighbors facing homelessness in the years ahead.

A Gift from Your IRA, 401(k), or Annuity

You may also be able to name Cornerstone as a beneficiary of a retirement account, such as an IRA, 401(k), 403(b), or annuity. For some donors, this can be a tax-wise way to give because charitable organizations may be able to receive these assets without the same income tax burden that individual heirs could face.

Charitable Gift Annuities and Other Planned Gifts

Some donors may benefit from planned giving tools such as a Charitable Gift Annuity, Donor-Advised Fund, or Charitable Remainder Trust. These options can help align your charitable goals with your broader financial plan, and may provide income, tax, or estate planning benefits depending on your situation.

Partnering with Covenant Trust

Cornerstone is grateful to work with Covenant Trust to help donors explore legacy giving options. Covenant Trust can help individuals and families think through charitable giving as part of a thoughtful financial and investment plan, including gifts through wills, trusts, retirement accounts, charitable gift annuities, donor-advised funds, and other planned giving tools.

Because every situation is unique, we encourage you to consult your own legal, financial, and tax advisors before making decisions about your estate or charitable giving plans. http://covenanttrust.com/

Your Legacy Can Help Open the Door

A legacy gift to Cornerstone helps continue the work of welcoming people in crisis, providing dignified housing, connecting people to care, and walking alongside them toward stability and housing.

Your generosity today can become part of someone else’s future hope.

To learn more about including Cornerstone Community Outreach in your legacy giving plans, please contact us at info@ccolife.org. We would be honored to have a conversation with you.

Dinner Guests -the Meal Ticket

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In the 1980s, Jesus People USA began providing meals to neighbors and to anyone who came to its doors.

What began as a simple meal shared in the community dining room soon became something more. Each day, Dinner Guests, our neighbors, were welcomed in, seated, and served the same meal the community had prepared for itself that evening. Community members Frank and Ephraim helped lead the food program, offering not only a plate of food, but a sense of order, dignity, and welcome.

The lines were often long. To make sure everyone could be served fairly, volunteers used the JPUSA meal ticket system. Tickets were given to those waiting outside, based on the number of seats available in the dining room. As Dinner Guests entered, they handed in their tickets and filled each seat. When people finished their meals and left, they were counted, and the next group waiting outside was invited in.

I remember those lines clearly. More than 50 people often came each day, including men, women, and children, all looking for a meal and a place where they would be received with care.

That daily rhythm of welcome became part of the foundation for what Cornerstone Community Outreach would become. We continued serving dinner in the community dining room for several years, until the shelter opened on Clifton. From that point forward, meals were served from the shelter site, and the work of hospitality continued to grow.

Those early meals remind us that Cornerstone’s mission has always started with a simple conviction: people experiencing hunger and homelessness should be met with dignity, kindness, and practical care. What began around shared tables has grown into a broader ministry of shelter, housing, healthcare connection, and support, but the heart of the work remains the same.

Reflection by Kathy Anderson, long time supporter and volunteer.

Annual Report

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We’re proud to share Cornerstone Community Outreach’s Annual Report, highlighting the impact we made together over the past year. From families finding permanent housing to individuals receiving critical care and support, each story reflects our mission in action. We invite you to take a moment to explore the report and see how your support is changing lives every day.

2024 Annual Report by Ellen Raedeke

Click here to view the 2024 Annual Report

DFSS Bed Availability Reporting

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To Submit Bed ReportLog in to : https://webapps1.chicago.gov/shelterbedreporting/

Log Bed Counts Between
12am and 2am I 8am and 10am I 4pm and 6pm

• Log in with your credentials
• Chose Site you are reporting for
• Enter available beds, and any relevant notes to availability.
• Successful entry will create a green box, red if fail.

Directions are available here:
https://ccolife.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/05/dfss-bed-count-app-signup-directions_05132025.pdf

QR Code for Webapp

the Civic Identity Hub: Rebuilding Belonging from the Ground Up

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At Cornerstone Community Outreach, our mission is to do more than provide shelter—we strive to restore dignity, agency, and a sense of belonging to every person who walks through our doors. That’s why we’re exploring a new framework to deepen our impact: the Civic Identity Hub.

Civic identity is more than paperwork or a mailing address. It’s the ability to be seen, counted, and heard in society. It’s how someone knows they belong—not just to a system, but to a community. For people experiencing homelessness, this identity is often lost or stripped away, leading to a cycle of invisibility and disconnection from public life.

The Civic Identity Hub is a vision born out of our frontline experience at Cornerstone and our commitment to innovation in care. It is a space—physical, relational, and digital—where individuals can begin to recover what has been taken from them:

-Healthcare integration (linkages to Medicaid, primary care, and behavioral health)
-Legal identification (state IDs, birth certificates, benefits enrollment)
-Access to civic life (voter registration, census participation, mail services)
-Restored agency (support to reclaim voice, purpose, and social participation)

While our Medically Integrated Shelter model addresses physical and mental health, the Civic Identity Hub expands that care to include social and civic health—the foundational structures of belonging and participation.

This is not a new building; it’s a new way of seeing people. A way of helping each person become known again—to themselves, their community, and the systems that shape their lives.

As we develop this vision, we invite civic leaders, policymakers, and neighbors to imagine with us:
What would it look like if housing, healthcare, and civic identity were restored in the same space?
What kind of city might we become?

Let’s build it—together.

Celebrating 35 Years of Community Impact

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RSVP Here: https://cco-appreciation-2025.eventbrite.com/

A Special Evening to Honor Our Supporters

Mark your calendars for an extraordinary evening of gratitude and community! On April 10th, from 6-9 PM at The Abbey, Cornerstone Community Outreach invites our cherished donors and volunteers to a celebration of shared commitment to transforming lives.

Since 1989, CCO has evolved from simply providing shelter to creating temporary homes where comprehensive, professional support helps guests rebuild their lives. This transformation wouldn’t be possible without you – our dedicated supporters who believe in our mission of “Accepting People” and “Providing Shelter.”

Click to preview the Cornerstone Community Outreach History Wall

The evening will feature:

  • Delicious local cuisine from Fight to Feed
  • Inspiring stories from community members
  • Special recognition of outstanding supporters
  • Opportunities to deepen your impact
  • An intimate look at CCO’s vision for the future

Each day, your generosity enables us to keep our doors open 24/7, providing not just shelter, but hope and pathway to permanent housing for families and individuals in need. Through our wrap-around services and personalized case management, we’ve helped countless guests transition into homes of their own.

As we gather to celebrate these achievements, we’ll also share our bold vision for the future and how you can be part of writing CCO’s next chapter.

Space is limited. Please RSVP today by clicking here. You will be redirected to Eventbrite to secure your place at this meaningful celebration.