ACE Mentor Program Chicago: Final Presentations

Again this year, Epstein was a proud supporter and dedicated counselor for the Ace Mentor Program Chicago. From this past fall through the spring, a devoted team of Epsteins architects, engineers and construction professionals met weekly with a group of ACE high school students. Throughout this time, Epstein supported, directed and nurtured these future designers and engineers while they designed a health clinic in East Garfield Park, an under-served community on Chicagos west side.

The students were given the opportunity to study the clinics surrounding area and have an in-depth look at each of the ACE (Architecture, Construction and Engineering) disciplines. This allowed them to create complete site and floor plans. They were also given an amazing field trip to the renovations of the Willis Tower lobby as well as college visits to the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign and the Illinois Institute of Technology.

On April 16th on the campus of IIT, the Epstein-mentored ACE team presented their final project based on a design concept, titled Healthy Chicago 2.0, which explored ways to promote health equity through social justice as well as ways to reduce health inequities within Chicago.

Additionally, seven members of the Epstein team were awarded scholarships for their efforts. The scholarship winners were:

Four students were given summer internships: Justine Yan (at Epstein), Aaron Winters (at Lendlease), Tiffany Wong (at ESD Global), and Lisette Casas (at ESD Global).

One student was awarded the summer Design-Build experience: Amari Vossoughi Parks.

And two students were awarded ACEs $4,000 scholarship: Israel Camacho (Merit Scholarship) and Jason Van Djick (Merit Scholarship).

Additionally, the Epstein Community Foundation (ECF), the in-house Epstein employee-run charity, was pleased to provide four $2,000 scholarships to Madison Barrera, Leslie Sadkowski, Nazareth Rodriguez and Julian Velasquez.

Congratulations to all!

And many thanks to the following Epstein mentors for devoting their time and expertise: Katie Bolger, Tim Gall, Matt Helfenbein, Ilyssa Kaserman, Jeffrey McQuiston, Jake Effinger, Samantha Schneider and Alexus Davis.

This was my first year participating as a mentor and as a team leader for ACE. The experience was amazing and the students were truly a pleasure to work with, Alexus said. The ACE Mentor Chicago program offers many opportunities for the students that participate, and I look forward to volunteering again next year.

Throughout the organizations 19 years of mentoring, ACE has awarded 197 paid internships, 684 scholarships, and had 2,000 student participants.

By mentoring high school students, ACE helps to increase awareness of a potential future in the world of architecture, construction and engineering, the non-profit says.