We want to thank you for your response to our summertime matching challenge, which was offered to help fund our “Rescuing Our Children” initiative. This Matching Challenge was launched in mid-July and will end on Labor Day, and we are happy to report  that we have raised just over 50 percent of our goal so far.

We still need to raise approximately $20,000 over the next four weeks in order to realize the full matching challenge.

Any donation given or mailed by September 6th will go toward this challenge
and will be fully tax-deductible, lowering your 2021 tax burden.

Rev. Ceasar LeFlore, the Field Director of our Public School Exit initiative, put together this short two-minute video to appeal to our supporters to help us take advantage of this amazing matching challenge opportunity. Please watch or listen to his request:

Here are some ways you can give your tax-deductible donation:

• Contribute online HERE.
• Give a gift of stock or appreciated assets. Contact Colleen Garcia, IFI’s Financial Administrator, at (708) 781-9328 or email her HERE.
• Mail your gift to: Illinois Family Institute, P.O. Box 876, Tinley Park, IL, 60477
• We also accept credit card donations over the phone at (708) 781-9328 during normal business hours.

Thank you for considering this matching challenge. Your financial support and prayers are what makes our mission to protect and preserve life, marriage, family and liberty in Illinois possible.  THANK YOU!

Sincerely,

David E. Smith
Executive Director

Don’t delay, please donate today!

One month ago, the IFI Team set off on a five day, eight stop tour of the state of Illinois. Our mission was to reach parents, grandparents and church leaders with an urgent message.  These “Rescuing Our Children” forums featured bold presentations about the perpetual academic failures of our public schools, and worse, the intentional anti-Christian indoctrination that intensifies year after year.

One has to look no farther than the Illinois Capitol for evidence of this malfeasance. The 102^nd General Assembly finished their spring session on May 31st. State lawmakers have introduced more than 7,000 bills this year, 600 of them have or are making their way to Governor Pritzker’s desk. It grieves me to report that our state lawmakers actually approved legislation to place female hygiene products in boys bathrooms in schools state wide. Yes, you read that correctly.

They passed legislation requiring county clerks to issue new marriage certificates to reflect legal name changes for transgender and non-binary individuals.

They approved of “Culturally Responsive Teaching and Leading Standards,” which will infuse the assumptions of Critical Race Theory/ identity politics/BLM into all teacher-training programs, all Professional Education Licensing (PEL), and indirectly into all public school classrooms.

So instead of focusing on academic standards, our government schools are making sure that teachers are trained in Marxist and sexual social engineering.

Let me draw your attention to this pamphlet that we’ve prepared for you. This list of the largest 40 school districts in Illinois clearly demonstrates how our government schools are failing students in English Language Arts, Math and Science while spending an enormous amount of your tax dollars per student. The proficiency rates are embarrassing. But even worse, the graduation rates in most school districts far exceed the academic performances of students.

Perhaps the most troubling bill that state lawmakers passed this year was SB 818 – “Comprehensive” sex education for K-12. The term “comprehensive” as a way to describe legislation should alarm you. It is a indication that government officials have big plans to invade a new corner of your childrens’ lives beginning in kindergarten.

This proposal requires that highly objectionable sex ed material be forced on the impressionable minds of children who attend public school, as young as 5 years-old! This new legislation would require all public schools—including charter schools—to align teaching on “personal health and safety” with the “National Sex Education Standards,” Some of the contributing organizations that helped devise these standards are really all you need to know:  Planned Parenthood, Human Rights Campaign, GLSEN, Gender Spectrum, PFLAG, LGBTQIA Resource Center, Intersex Society of North America, Race Forward, SIECUS: Sex Ed for Social Change, Trans Student Educational Resources, and the World Health Organization.

The intention of global elites is to create “world core” standards. Alex Newman, Executive Director of Public School Exit, points out in his 40 minute presentation that these include socialism and communism–both failed experiments in other parts of the world–as well as the ever-expanding sexual education. Having laid the groundwork in sex ed classes and drag queen story hours at libraries, now schools are attempting to hide sex change services from parents, and educational materials go so far as to teach about the pedophilia present in ancient Greece.

Furthermore, these schools are teaching Islamic and Buddhist principles, while banning prayer in schools, as part of the “global education” that schools are moving toward. Ultimately, they hope for a “world core curriculum” that will have the same standards for every child in every school in the world. This is why government schools were created and has always been the goal, Newman says, and is a sign to parents: get your children out of government schools.

Please take time to listen to Mr. Newman’s entire video presentation:

The Rev. Ceasar LeFlore followed Mr. Newman’s presentation to urge attendees to consider Christ-centered education choices.

In his presentation, Rev. LeFlore discusses the many options that parents have for educating their children if they take them out of public schools. The public schools are indoctrinating our children, he reminds us, with liberal, sexually perverted, postmodern agendas, and the time they spend there far outweighs the short time that they spend in church on Sundays. While it is important for them to know reading, writing, and arithmetic, it is far more important that they know the truths of the Kingdom of God, and this is not something that they will ever learn in public schools. With this in mind, Rev. LeFlore speaks on numerous resources for educating our children with a focus on teaching them God’s ways.

Please take time to listen to Rev. LeFlore’s entire video presentation:

Between now and Labor Day, you can double the impact of your tax deductible donation
while helping us fund this critical effort!

Please help us meet and/or surpass a rare summertime matching challenge that has been made through the generosity of faithful supporters. These donors are working with us to offer a $40,000 dollar-for-dollar matching challenge to help us raise $80,000 for “Rescuing the Children” initiative here in Illinois!