How Kim Foxx Went From YMCA Kid to Cook County State’s Attorney

On Thursday, May 24, 2018, the Crown Family YMCA Center hosted Cook County State's Attorney Kim Foxx for the fourth event in our YXP: The YMCA Experience series. “I'm here as a YMCA alum . . . as someone who benefited from having the YMCA in my life at an early age,” Foxx said to the crowd at the YMCA Learning Institute, the lead funding for which was provided by BMO Harris Bank. “I am a child who grew up in concentrated poverty in one of the most notorious housing projects in the country, Cabrini Green. I remember when the New City YMCA was built down the street from my apartment complex, and how excited we were to see the bright colors and the freshness of that building.”

After graduating from Lincoln Park High School in 1990, Foxx completed her undergraduate and law degrees at Southern Illinois University in Carbondale, then served as Toni Preckwinkle's chief of staff in Cook County. In addition to speaking about how the Y impacted her as a child, Foxx talked about how communities that invest in early childhood education (like the Y's programming across the city) see better outcomes. Guests also had the opportunity to explore the Crown Family YMCA Center’s diverse programmatic spaces and hear from subject matter experts about how the Y is changing lives throughout Chicagoland. For more coverage of Foxx's speech, visit the Chicago Citizen website.

In partnership with our YSVP programs, YXP: The YMCA Experience is a quarterly event series featuring experts who speak on illuminating topics relevant to Y programming, as well as tours of our new Crown Family YMCA Center. Past events have included youth justice advocate Xavier McElrath-Bey, Deputy Director of Programming at the University of Chicago’s Institute of Politics and former WBEZ radio host Steve Edwards, and author and journalist Alex Kotlowitz.