One of our consistently generous supporters has offered to match donations submitted by February 28, 2015. You may DOUBLE the value of your donation at no extra cost to you  by making your donation today through our secure online link!  This applies to all donations up to a grand total of $3500!

Each day, 1 in 6 Chicagoans struggles with food insecurity and goes to bed hungry. The 6^th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival will bring together music lovers from across the area to support hunger relief efforts. To date, $132,000 has been raised to support hunger relief efforts in the Chicago area. The Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland, Care for Real, Catholic Charities of Chicago, Top Box Foods, and West Suburban PADS. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

Howard Reich said, “…The multi-dimensionality of the settings – from club to church to recital hall – underscores the imaginativeness of the enterprise.

Because the venture is entirely philanthropic, none of the administrators gets paid, either, with Moulder spending months each year organizing the event in tandem with 10 volunteers, plus additional docents during each performance.” More…

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland, Care for Real, Catholic Charities of Chicago, Top Box Foods, and West Suburban PADS. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

With the headline, “Chi-Town Jazz Festival fights hunger through music,” Howard Reich, The Chicago Tribune’s esteemed Arts Editor, reached out to his large audience to explain and feature this year’s Festival.

Writing about the Festival’s Founder/Director, John Moulder, Howard writes, “…Perhaps only a figure with Moulder’s unique, dual credentials as musician and pastor could have persuaded so many to give so much of themselves. As jazz guitarist, Moulder commands the respect of anyone who values high-powered virtuosity and edgy jazz improvisation. As a Catholic priest, he clearly brings a certain credibility to the idea of giving to those in need.

“First of all, Moulder’s a stand-up guy,” Green Mill owner Dave Jemilo told me last year, in explaining why he said “yes” when Moulder reached out to him for the first festival.

“If he says something, you know it’s going to be what he’s saying. We’re lucky to do this (music business) for a living, so why not be nice once in awhile? It’s not like there’s some big middlemen all over. Moulder’s the guy, and I trust him 100 percent.””

Read more here. And plan to join us starting next Wednesday.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland, Care for Real, Catholic Charities of Chicago, Top Box Foods, and West Suburban PADS. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

Here is a brief summary from one of the organizations the 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival supports.

“As an update to what we are experiencing, Care for Real continues to see a significant upsurge in client need.  In January, we set a record for the month, despite the cold weather, by providing free programs and services, most notably food and clothing, distributing more than 140,000 lbs. of food, to more than 7,000.  All signs point to yet another record year as we expect to assist more than 80,000 by the close of 2015. Managing day to day operations with a staff of just five, these are challenging times for us.  Luckily, a volunteer base in the hundreds help us keep up with the staggering numbers.”

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

We have a winner!

Congratulations to Megan Chen, who tweeted our message and was chosen by Random Name picker (http://www.miniwebtool.com/random-name-picker/).

Megan gets to enjoy dinner at Gibsons Steak House, plus a limo ride, provided by Metropolitan Limousine, to one of the #CTJF2015 performances. Thanks to everybody who participated! 

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

Existing research on the senior population reveals that individuals age 60 and older are experiencing heightened rates of food insecurity and are particularly vulnerable to the negative health and nutrition implications of food insecurity. In partnership with the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger (NFESH), Feeding America has released two recent Spotlight studies on senior food insecurity.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

As we pause this Veterans Day to reflect on the sacrifices made by all the brave men and women who served in the military, we are reminded of the challenges many veterans shoulder when they return home.

Too often, hunger is among those challenges.

A recent study, led by Feeding America, found that 20 percent of households that receive assistance from our nation’s network of food banks include someone who has served in the U.S. Armed Forces. Locally, 18 percent of households that receive food from the Greater Chicago Food Depository include at least one person who has served. More than 18,000 veterans in Cook County live below the poverty line. Read more here.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

The United States changed the name of its definitions in 2006 that eliminated references to hunger, keeping various categories of food insecurity.  This did not represent a change in what was measured.  Very low food insecurity (described as food insecurity with hunger prior to 2006) means that, at times during the year, the food intake of household members was reduced and their normal eating patterns were disrupted because the household lacked money and other resources for food. This means that people were hungry (in the sense of “the uneasy or painful sensation caused by want of food” [Oxford English Dictionary 1971] for days each year. More info here.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

WIC  is the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants and Children. WIC provides nutritious foods, nutrition education, and referrals to health and other social services to low-income pregnant, postpartum and breastfeeding women, and infants and children up to age 5 who are at nutrition risk. WIC is not an entitlement program: Congress does not set aside funds to allow every eligible individual to participate in the program. Instead, WIC is a Federal grant program for which Congress authorizes a specific amount of funding each year for program operations. More info here.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

Hunger continues to disproportionately affect children as 255,180 of the food insecure individuals in Cook County are under the age of 18. This equates to 20.8 percent of Cook County’s child population.

The new data is based on a combination of factors from the U.S. Census Current Population Survey and county-level factors such as unemployment, median income, poverty, homeownership, and demographic measures. Read more here.

The 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival, with the help of jazz musicians and venues and our team of volunteers, is working with local hunger relief agencies to address hunger insecurity in Chicagoland. Join us by attending performances, becoming a sponsor, or simply by donating online. Thanks.

When you Post & Share or tweet by February 20, 2015 about the 6th Annual Chi-Town Jazz Festival Supporting Hunger Relief in Chicago, you will automatically be entered into a drawing for a Dinner and a Limo Ride to one of the Chi-Town Jazz Festival events in March! Details.

Thanks to Quarles & Brady for being a sponsor for the Chi-Town Jazz Festival’s second Kick Off Event held on January 15 at Quarles & Brady’s beautiful offices overlooking the Chicago River.

Jennifer Sucher, Executive Counsel at GECC, and Fr John Moulder introduced the four charities that will be recipients of the 2015 Festival. We will once again support the work of Catholic Charities and Care for Real. The new charities are Top Box Foods and West Suburban PADS.

Dr Saul Haskell of Orthopaedic Specialists of the North Shore presented the first Whole Note Sponsorship check to Fr John Moulder at this year’s Festival Kick Off Event on January 15.  In addition to their sponsorship gift, Drs Saul Haskell and Ron Silver will match up to $3,500 received by Feb 28.  You can help make this a successful match by donating directly on our secure site at GiveCentral or consider becoming a Sponsor by clicking here. And thanks for helping us provide hunger relief in Chicago.

testWe are grateful to both new and returning sponsors and donors who support this year’s festival. There is still time to be one if you wish. Just click here for more details. Thanks!

Print the schedule by clicking on this pdf link, Chi-Town Jazz Festival ’15.

Print the schedule by clicking on this pdf link, Chi-Town Jazz Festival ’15.

Dianne Reeves, a Symphony Center favorite, is an astonishing vocalist who transports her audience with her power, joyful intensity and spiritual abandon. She appears on the 2014/15 SCP Jazz series on the heels of Beautiful Life, her first studio album in five years. With her longtime pianist and musical director Peter Martin leading the way, the four-time Grammy® winner will illuminate the various facets of love with songs ranging from Stormy Weather to Marvin Gaye’s I Want You. More info here.

Symphony Center is graciously extending their stage once again to John Moulder, Chi-Town Jazz Festival’s Founder/Director as he encourages people to attend our events in the coming weeks supporting hunger relief in Chicago. Plan to attend an evening of great jazz at one of these venues. There is still time to become a Sponsor. And you can always just “Donate Now!” at our secure link. We hope to see you at the Festival. Thanks!