During 2024, Candor has celebrated fifty years of serving the Chicagoland community! We will be wrapping up our yearlong celebration with our Dancing Through the Decades event at which we will reminisce about all the wonderful things that Candor has done over the last fifty years. This is a huge celebration and accomplishment for so many reasons.
We have served over six million students since 1974! Generations of students have participated in our puberty, sex education and substance abuse prevention programs, first as a field trip destination in our center at 21 Salt Creek Lane in Hinsdale, and now in school classrooms, whether in person or via virtual programs.
In the last 13 years that I have been a part of this organization, I have heard stories from people who remember attending our programs as students. Some literally remember what seat they were sitting in when they learned this valuable information about their young bodies. The programs that we teach and the content that students learn is life changing. I was among the first students to participate in the Robert Crown programs in the 1970’s and vividly remember the building, the programs, and the “Linda” puberty book that I borrowed from my sister who attended her program the year after me. My husband, children and I have funny family stories about when my children participated in the programs when they were in elementary and middle school.
The reason that our programs have been and continue to be successful is that while the content that we teach about the human body does not necessarily change much, the way that we talk to young people about caring for their brains and bodies continually evolves. Who would have thought fifty years ago that today about half of U.S. children would have smartphone by age 11 or that upwards of 92% of all teens would have a smart phone. The access to information for young people changes everything. They need to learn skills as to how to manage all the information that is coming to them and to learn decision making skills that they can apply to a variety of situations. As any older adult knows, we cannot keep pace with the way the younger generation consumes information, but we can help to provide them with skills that will help them to manage any tricky situation that comes their way.
According to data from the National Center on Charitable Statistics, approximately 30% of nonprofits fail to exist after 10 years. Non-profit work is not easy. Funding is always an issue for non-profit organizations, and it takes care and diligent management of resources to make sure that non-profit organizations are financially sound. Candor has been fortunate to have an endowment and investment accounts that have supported our organization since it is inception in 1974. The people of Hinsdale and surrounding communities raised funds and put this money in place so that the organization could be around for the long haul. We rely on only a small percentage of our investment accounts to fund our operations. This allows the money that was set aside to support the organization for the long term or to be available in times of crisis. We are extremely fortunate for an organization of our size to have such a healthy endowment and that is all because of the forward thinking of the community fifty years ago.
As long as I am at the helm of this tremendous organization, I will not take for granted any of the work that was done to establish this organization as the pillar of puberty, sex education and substance use education that it is. Thank you to the community that has supported the work that we have done for the last fifty years!
Written by: Barb Thayer, Chief Executive Officer