Each school morning, Cherry and her four children wake up at 5 a.m. in a homeless shelter on the South Side for victims of domestic violence.
They brush their teeth. They make their beds. The two older boys, Yadiel, 6, and Yeiden, 8, help with their younger siblings, who are 1 and 2. And then the whole family begins the two-bus journey to Schubert Elementary School in the Belmont Cragin neighborhood on Chicago’s Northwest Side, to get there in time for the boys to have breakfast before classes begin.
For the past two years, Cherry has navigated housing upheaval, a custody battle and mental health struggles – but she’s not alone. She knows she can rely on a consistent source of stability and help: the Brightpoint Community Hub at Schubert Elementary, a program that embeds social services on school property.
The school and the hub operate in tandem to identify parents who need extra help, which could include clothes, food assistance, mental health counseling, and job or housing support. The hub’s community navigators then work closely with parents, many of whom are immigrant mothers seeking a better life for their children.
“When we work with families, we treat them as we would want others to treat our own,” said Piedad Ayala, a community navigator at the hub. “We feel grateful to have the ability to help.”
For Cherry, that kind of careful attention has helped her through some of her darkest days.
“They’re the best people I’ve ever known and I’m grateful that God put me in this place to meet them,” she said.
Cherry is pregnant with her fifth child, who is due on July 4. Her name will be Yaira.
‘The fear is the hardest part’
Roughly half of all children who live in Belmont Cragin, a predominantly Latino community, are facing food insecurity, according to data from the Greater Chicago Food Depository.
At Schubert Elementary, the need appears even more acute – more than 80% of the students are considered “low income,” according to state data, meaning they’re eligible for free- or reduced-price lunch, live in substitute care or their families receive public aid.
Such data doesn’t paint the whole picture, though. At Schubert, the teachers and staff are committed to nurturing a vibrant school community that anyone would be proud to send their children to, said principal Claudia Guerrero.
And the Brightpoint Community Hub is an important part of the school’s culture of compassion and support, she said. The community navigators work hard to connect families to community resources they may not even know exist.
“We’re so lucky to have Brightpoint here because we know when kids are able to have basic needs met, then they’re able to learn,” Guerrero said.
The Brightpoint Community Hub also serves families in the community who are not otherwise connected to the school. Yuneisi, a young mother in Belmont Cragin, was recently hired as a custodian at another elementary school – a good stable job with kind, empathetic colleagues, she said. Brightpoint’s community navigators helped her to apply for the job and with the onboarding.
Each weeknight, she video calls her 2-year-old daughter from work to say goodnight.
Like so many other thousands of people who have immigrated to Chicago in recent years, Yuneisi fled an unsafe situation in hopes of a better life, surviving a harrowing journey from her homeland of Colombia to get here. And there’s no guarantee that her family will be able to stay as they seek asylum status.
“The fear is the hardest part,” said Yuneisi, 29. “My focus is on my daughter learning English so even if we get deported, she could come back someday and have a career.”
Jennifer, 24, of Nicaragua, shares that same fierce determination for her two children, Carmen, 1 and Corina, 6. Her oldest daughter attends Schubert Elementary.
She wept as she recounted the experience of being nearly homeless when first arriving in Chicago, sleeping in a church until her husband could find work in a mattress factory.
Her mother couldn’t read or write, she said, and school was never a priority for her.
“I want my children to have a better life than me,” Jennifer said, wiping away tears. “That’s why I’m here. It’s been hard but I believe in God, and nothing is impossible when you believe in God.”
Hope for the future
On one of the final days of the waning school year at Schubert, school families gathered in front of the school for a picnic. Parents spread blankets amid the grass and dandelions; staff arranged tables of food and games nearby. Peals of laughter spilled from the school as the children bounded outside.
In the shade of an oak tree, Berenice posed for a portrait with two of her children, Gabriel, 6, and Berenice, 4. She moved her family to Chicago in January 2025 after feeling increasingly threatened by the drug cartel in Michoacan, Mexico, where she owned a small store.
Life in Chicago is difficult but safer, she said. Since arriving, Brightpoint has provided them with clothes and shoes, connected them with the local furniture bank, and helped to find medical providers for the kids.
“They’re the first people I call,” said Berenice, 32. “I call them because I know they’re going to be present – for me as well as for other families.”
Ayala, one of the Brightpoint community navigators, lives just a couple blocks from the school. She’s a former Schubert parent and recess coach.
Importantly, she can relate to what many of the parents and children are experiencing, as her own parents immigrated to Chicago from Ecuador when she was only 10 years old.
“It feels like an extension of how I’ve helped my own parents,” Ayala said. “We feel like we’ve done our job when a family doesn’t need us anymore.”
For Cherry, the pregnant mother of four young children, her plan is to save enough money to find an apartment in Belmont Cragin, closer to Schubert.
Recently, she’s worked occasional shifts for Amazon, stocking inventory, she said. She hopes to eventually go back to school for information technology to earn a better living to support her family.
Life’s been hard, but Cherry has her children. She has her Mormon faith, which is important to her. And she knows the Schubert-Brightpoint community has her back.
She’s not giving up.
“I want to make sure my children know that I’m present,” she said. “I want them to have what I didn’t have.”