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Palatine-based charity donates $100,000 to urban farm

Making good on a pledge to find 100 women to donate $1,000 each, members of the new Palatine-based Impact 100 Chicago charity voted Tuesday night to award $100,000 to an urban farm greenhouse learning lab for residents in the Cabrini-Green neighborhood of Chicago.

Chicago Lights, a community outreach organization of the Fourth Presbyterian Church in the city, operates the greenhouse as a way to teach families about nutrition and healthy cooking while giving residents job skills and the ability to grow organic produce. The urban greenhouse won the grant after a vote during the awards ceremony at Arlington Park racetrack in Arlington Heights. Because Impact 100 Chicago surpassed its goal by recruiting 126 members from the suburbs and city, the charity was able to donate $6,500 to each of four runners-up.

Working from a list of more than four dozen charities vying for the grant money, members of the grass-roots charity narrowed the list to finalists in categories of Arts and Culture (Chicago Youth Symphony Orchestra), Education (Daniel Murphy Scholarship Fund), Environment (Chicago Lights), Family (St. Martin de Porres House of Hope) and Health & Wellness (Almost Home Kids in Naperville).

“This night was fabulous,” said Marybeth Lernihan, the Barrington woman who founded Impact 100 Chicago and serves as its president. “The energy was incredible. It was wonderful.”

For more information on the Impact 100 and the projects funded Tuesday by the grants, visit impact100chicago.org.

The majority of members already have vowed to join again next year and nearly a dozen newcomers joined Tuesday, Lernihan says, adding, “It’s a good sign for things to come.”

126 suburban women, $126,000, 1 charity