PFLAG Council of Northern Illinois
The PFLAG Council of Northern Illinois Council was formed because when we pool our resources together, we can accomplish a lot than if each chapter was working separately. Council consists of 13 chapters – Aurora, Woodstock, DeKalb County, Palatine, Gurnee/Lake County, Hinsdale, Deerfield (formerly Glenview), Oak Park, Chicago Metro, Chicago Southside, Entre Familia, Kankakee, and Parents of Transgender Individuals. Council is working on starting a chapter to start in the South and Southwest suburbs of Chicago. Council is striving to have great coverage for PFLAG across the Chicagoland area.
Together, council has been able to provide important services that individually would cost each chapter considerable funds. Council provides the PFLAG Northern Illinois website, one helpline, an email contact program, one brochure that covers all chapters, a volunteer referral service, one newsletter for all chapters, has a printing service that all chapters can use, provides insurance for all chapters, organizes the annual Mother’s Day Fundraiser at Sidetracks, organizes the Lobby Day at Springfield, and provides the trolley for all members at the Pride parade. PFLAG Council and its chapters have worked together on projects that impact all chapters, particularly fundraisers. In the past, Council has organized fundraiser initiatives for campaigns such as “Stay Close”, “Straight for Equality”, and council recently held our own fundraiser, “Stand-up for Equality.” Council has also provided joint programs such as a facilitator training program and most recently, a diversity training program.
Joining together has allowed the chapters to present ourselves as a singular unit to the outside. If a person or an organization wants to contact PFLAG for general purposes, instead of contacting all 13 chapters, the person/organization can just contact the council. If a parent wants to contact PFLAG, the parent can just use one website, one helpline to reach us, hopefully making the search for PFLAG easier and efficient.
When the PFLAG chapters come together, we have given each other more friends in PFLAG. Running your chapters month in and month out, making sure members come, retaining current members, making sure chapters are active, reaching out to new parents and family members – that’s a lot of work, and work that we all do on a volunteer basis. By banding together, the PFLAG chapters support each other and lets each of us know that we’re doing what we can for our LGBT loved ones and we’re not alone in keeping those important chapter meetings active each month.
PFLAG Council has also been the place for those parents, family members, and LGBT individuals who want to do more than just provide support to others. Sometimes PFLAG members want to take on bigger roles or larger projects to spread the word about the importance of PFLAG, do advocacy efforts at the state and national level, or make important contributions to PFLAG and its missions. Past initiatives included increasing the diversity of our chapters, finding alternative sources of funding, and hosting facilitator trainings, and conducting trainings with professionals, such as therapists, school staff, and church members. We can continue to use council time to plan and address these issues, as well as others that chapters want to address.
It is important that PFLAG Council and its chapters work together to ensure that the PFLAG chapters are sustained and maintained over the long haul. We don’t necessarily need hundreds of members attending chapter meetings each month. As long we have good core groups of folks so that there are chapters that parents and family members can contact and rely upon and get what they need from PFLAG, that would be a great service. Anything council can do to make sure that happens is a primary concern.
If you are interested in joining PFLAG Council, please contact us at our contact page. We would love to have your involvement.
Sincerely,
Peter Ji
PFLAG Council president
