CME Group Foundation Awards Over $1 Million in Grants to Further Support Education Initiatives Across Chicago

CHICAGO, July 10, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- CME Group Foundation today announced that it has awarded over $1 million in grants to further support education initiatives across Chicago. This funding will help ensure that students continue to have access to quality educational resources, and that learning initiatives at every level remain impactful at a time when students and educators face unique challenges and uncertainty. 

For over a decade, CME Group Foundation has served as an advocate for computer science and math education initiatives and has funded transformative projects that promote real, measurable impact from cradle to career.  As the pandemic continues to affect lives, it is critical that quality teaching and learning resources remain available to the most vulnerable populations and that students continue to grow and develop.

"The CME Group Foundation appreciates all those who have worked tirelessly over the last few months to deliver vital teaching and learning resources through an extremely challenging time," said Kassie Davis, Executive Director of the CME Group Foundation. "We have long-supported initiatives that help equip students and educators with the skills and resources to be successful, and it is critical that this work continues so that our students stand prepared for the future."

The Foundation has approved over $300,000 in special grants to support those who have been severely impacted by the COVID-19 crisis. The disruptions caused by the pandemic are likely to have a deep and profound impact on Chicago's most vulnerable populations, and this funding will address medium and long-term challenges including recovery and rebuilding efforts that focus on student trauma, learning loss and access to education. Funding was also granted to support more immediate needs across the city, including robust summer education and youth employment opportunities and hunger relief.

A complete list of CME Group Foundation 2020 grantees follows:

College & Career Success

• Associated Colleges of Illinois
• Empower Illinois
• University of Chicago Network for College Success
• Better Future Forward
• OneGoal
• Intrinsic Schools

Education K-12 – Computer Science

• Computer Science Teachers Association
• Northwestern University Office of Community Education Partnerships
• DePaul University College of Computing and Digital Media
• University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
• Chicago Learning Exchange
• After School Matters
• Loyola University Chicago
• Museum of Science and Industry
• Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship
• Boy Scouts of America
• Project SYNCERE
• Project Exploration
• Code Nation
• YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago
• We All Code
• Universidad Popular

Early Childhood Education

• University of Illinois-Chicago Math at Home
• Illinois Governor's Office of Early Childhood Funding Commission
• Chicago Public Library Foundation
• Carole Robertson Center
• Metropolitan Family Services Learning Landscapes
• Council for a Strong America/ReadyNation

Special COVID-19 Response Grants

• Chicago Education Equity COVID-19 Response Fund
• Children First Fund Compassion Fund
• Greater Chicago Food Depository
• MHA Labs "Let's Save Summer"
• Chicago Department of Family and Support Services One Summer Chicago
• Urban Initiatives
• World Central Kitchen

For more information about CME Group Foundation, please visit the website: www.cmegroupfoundation.org.

About CME Group Foundation

CME Group Foundation helps today's students keep pace with dramatically evolving technology, creating a workforce for the future that is equipped with the skills to meet tomorrow's global challenges. By bringing together the brightest minds in education to generate fresh approaches to early math, computer science, personalized learning, and college and career success, we are sparking system-wide change that benefits all students, from cradle to career.  They will shape the future of the world's most important industries, including our own, so we give them the tools they need to achieve their full potential.

About CME Group

As the world's leading and most diverse derivatives marketplace, CME Group (www.cmegroup.com) enables clients to trade futures, options, cash and OTC markets, optimize portfolios, and analyze data – empowering market participants worldwide to efficiently manage risk and capture opportunities. CME Group exchanges offer the widest range of global benchmark products across all major asset classes based on interest rates, equity indexes, foreign exchange, energy, agricultural products and metals.  The company offers futures and options on futures trading through the CME Globex® platform, fixed income trading via BrokerTec and foreign exchange trading on the EBS platform. In addition, it operates one of the world's leading central counterparty clearing providers, CME Clearing. With a range of pre- and post-trade products and services underpinning the entire lifecycle of a trade, CME Group also offers optimization and reconciliation services through TriOptima, and trade processing services through Traiana.

CME Group, the Globe logo, CME, Chicago Mercantile Exchange, Globex, and, E-mini are trademarks of Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  CBOT and Chicago Board of Trade are trademarks of Board of Trade of the City of Chicago, Inc.  NYMEX, New York Mercantile Exchange and ClearPort are trademarks of New York Mercantile Exchange, Inc.  COMEX is a trademark of Commodity Exchange, Inc. BrokerTec, EBS, TriOptima, and Traiana are trademarks of BrokerTec Europe LTD, EBS Group LTD, TriOptima AB, and Traiana, Inc., respectively. Dow Jones, Dow Jones Industrial Average, S&P 500 and S&P are service and/or trademarks of Dow Jones Trademark Holdings LLC, Standard & Poor's Financial Services LLC and S&P/Dow Jones Indices LLC, as the case may be, and have been licensed for use by Chicago Mercantile Exchange Inc.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners. 

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