The year 2000 was also a year of GROWTH for our independent affiliates. Several of them, such as, eta Creative Arts Foundation, Muntu Dance Theatre and Imani, Inc., have embarked on expansion projects that will tremendously impact their ability to reach a greater audience and consequently enhance the quality of life for more communities and individuals.

BUFI added affiliates to our roster:

• Recovering the Gifted Child Academy
• Jazz Unites, Inc.
• Africa International House
• Concerned Citizens, Mother’s House
• Interfaith House, Inc.
• DuSable Museum of African American History
• Thurgood Marshall Scholarship Fund

BUFI partnered for EDUCATION REFORM with the Chicago Public School System to improve the performance of area schools. The steering committee will institute programs to make schools more representative of and accountable to the community, that is, adopting higher standards and offering better curriculum and individual attention.

Through your charitable dollars, our financial assistance component has provided RESOURCES for hundreds of grassroots organizations and individuals by awarding grants to programs that addressed:

• Shelter for the Homeless
• Senior Citizens
• Youth in Crisis
• Training/Certification in Technology
• Research in Forensics, the African Holocaust and Reparations
• Performance Art
• Feeding Hundreds of Families
• Community Diversity

Through TECHNICAL ASSISTANCE, BUFI has witnessed the birth of new service organizations and the strengthening of established agencies.

Our affiliates, like Clara’s House Shelter, Matthew House and Olive Branch Mission, have been winning awards from across the nation in recognition of exceptional performance. These are not “band-aid” organizations but are structured to train and motivate to self sufficiency.

The small business tenants of our headquarters building have experienced gains due in part to the communal/nurturing environment. MUTUAL AID is the principle here.

This summer, BUFI also partnered with over 34 businesses, organizations, block clubs, the local Chamber (which we initiated) and concerned individuals to promote ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT. We produced a free major event that exposed the businesses, visual and performing artists and neighborhood groups of South Shore to thousands of residents and visitors, proving that VOLUNTEERING together can MAKE A DIFFERENCE in your community.

Visit our website to learn more about how BUFI affects social change in your community.

We must continue to strengthen our institutions and increase their reach through capacity building collaborative.

We must continue to develop educational programs that challenge students to be their best, teachers to provide nurturing environments for learning and schools to invest in the tools necessary for the highest level of instruction.

We must continue to encourage parents to be positive role models and to participate in the monitoring of activities that influence our children’s lives.

We must continue to patronize our local businesses and remind them of their obligation to practice community reinvestment for the economic growth and health of our neighborhoods.

We must continue to support our visual, performing and literary artists who are so instrumental in communicating our history and culture.

We must continue to lobby our elected officials for our piece of the pie and to increase representation of our specific cause.

We must continue to rally for an enhanced level of health and human services and to demand social justice.

We must continue to inspire benevolence among ourselves in order to enable the less fortunate, motivate our youth, revitalize our communities and strengthen our families by using our own resources for the empowerment of our people.

We must preserve our legacy of giving but here is where we must be more creative and confident that we can solve our own problems. We must make sure that our resources are channelled into ventures that will create and maintain wealth among our people; create and maintain businesses that bring jobs to our neighborhoods; create and maintain technologically advanced programs that utilize our natural instincts for invention.

We have the power to build and maintain our own products and prosperity and lift and sustain, as a unified community, all Black people in this new millennium.

Yours in Self-help,

Henry L. English
President/CEO

Through the generous assistance of State Senator Barack Obama and State Representative Barbara Flynn Currie, much needed renovation to the building’s facade and upgrading of its systems will become a reality. The grant will be used to make the building more energy efficient and its grounds more presentable. Greater efficiency will also economically impact the businesses and service organizations that comprise the tenant base.