ChildServ a Chicago-based, not-for-profit child and family service agency, is celebrating National Family Week at Bethel New Life, 1140 N. Lamon. The event runs from Nov. 19 to 25, and the agency hosted two major events in mid-November. The first was their annual meeting, held Nov. 14 and the second was a kickoff for National Family Week on Nov. 15.

The afternoon gathering was an outreach event for families and individuals who are served by ChildServ and Bethel New Life. The well-attended program included workshops on education and taxes, voter registration training, immigration information, how to use voter machines, money matters, low interest car loans, and services for families.

The children’s program offered music by Shana Harvey, storytelling by Linda Bubon of Women & Children First, and ending with dinner. Vera Davis, chairman of the NAACP Westside Branch, was on hand to accept the National Family Week Advocacy Award for herself and her husband, Cong. Danny Davis (7th). The Davises were recognized for their work in the community and working for the benefit of children and families.

James C. Jones, CEO of ChildServ, said, “National Family Week is an event that happens nationally during Thanksgiving week. This is our fourth time hosting this event, so it’s very exciting. We’ve had the event on the South Side, so we felt it was time to bring it to the West Side. We have a program here, the Family Service Center at 4909 W. Division in the Westside Holistic building, so we thought this would be a great activity for this community because we serve many families on the West Side, Lawndale, Austin and Humboldt Park. So we thought this would be the perfect setting for this event.”

Peter Goldberg, president and CEO of Alliance for Children & Families, said, “The Alliance is the shepherd, if you will, for the National Family Week celebration that they place all around the country on the week before Thanksgiving. We sponsor events through our member agencies, so events like this are taking place from New York and New England through the South and out to California.

“We’re proud of ChildServ and Bethel New Life combining to do a National Family Week event here in Chicago. The assumption of National Family Week-we organize it around economic success. And the notion is children do better when they are living with strong and healthy families and that strong and healthy families have the best opportunity to thrive when they are connected to the community and economic support. This is an opportunity to celebrate children and families, and I think that while we do it one week during the year, we really do it 52 weeks a year, every year. This is just simply the pinnacle, if you will, the one point in time in which we celebrate what families are doing with their children all year round. We try to make it a celebratory program where we just say thank you for what you are doing and provide some help and motivation for children and families to reach their fullest aspirations.”

For more information on ChildServ or its National Family Week Celebration event, call 773/693-0300 or visit the website www.childserv.org.