Chicago Light House Restarted Adult Living Skills Program

A resident of Chicago, Illinois, Judge Megan Goldish presides over domestic violence cases at the Circuit Court of Cook County. Outside of her role at the courthouse, Judge Megan Goldish serves on the Chicago Light House Junior Board, an advocacy and fundraising arm of the organization that serves the blind and the vision impaired.

After a three-year hiatus, the Chicago Light House announced that it had restarted its Adult Living Skills (ALS) program in spring 2023. The ALS program is the only one in Illinois serving individuals who are blind or have a visual impairment and an intellectual or developmental disability.

At the time of the announcement, the ALS program had already restarted its café and begun going on outings. The program was relaunching its work in the garden, planting seeds in the community garden on the southwest side of the building.

The garden was created in partnership with Urban Transformation Network, a location of one of the outings where students help take care of the hydroponic plants (plants grown in water instead of soil) and ready them for sale at the market. The purpose of this activity is to learn about healthy nutrition.

In addition to working with Urban Transformation Network and the community garden, ALS participants are also learning sign language and reading using Braille readers. The organization received a donation of Braille blocks designed to teach these populations to read.