Volunteers Help Rehab Declining School Facilities

Employees of private firms, who are painting classrooms, planting trees and building playgrounds are helping to raise the spirits of public school staff and students in North Chicago. "Similar partnerships are becoming more common as companies nationwide, including scores in the Chicago area, team up with neighborhoods and schools on improvement projects....Discover Financial Services...sent several hundred employees to Green Bay Elementary School in North Chicago to build two playgrounds. The school also had to rebuild its gymnasium this summer after a suspicious fire a year ago caused more than $1.2 million damage....Neither North Chicago High School, which celebrates its 50th anniversary this fall, nor Green Bay Elementary School, which opened in 1952, had had any major improvements."

Thanks to Connie Chung