ICE'S DIRECTOR

Robert Gannett

Robert Gannett, ICE's Executive Director, has worked as a community organizer in Chicago since 1972. During that time, he has helped residents address issues of redlining, property value protection, affordable homeownership, local school governance, restoration of publicly funded mental health services, and absence of after school civics programs for middle school students. He worked with leaders, members, staff, colleagues, and partner organizations to help draft and pass the Chicago School Reform Act of 1988, the Home Equity Assurance Act of 1988, and the Community Expanded Mental Health Services Act of 2011.

He and his wife Joanne live in the Uptown community.

COMMUNITY ORGANIZER

Rapheal arteberry

Rapheal Arteberry has worked with ICE for four years as a Community Organizer and Lead Facilitator of the Citizens Now program. He has helped ICE on all of its current projects, including leading a team of interns to help create the West Side Expanded Mental Health Services Program in 2016, working with Housing Bronzeville on showings of the “Blueprint for Bronzeville” documentary, and overseeing five cycles of the Citizens Now Program at four schools in the North Lawndale community ( Chalmers, Dvorak, Johnson & Penn).

He currently resides with his family in the Bronzeville community.

ICE'S BOARD

ICE Board includes the following community leaders in Chicago’s communities:

Pat Vader

Pat Vader, ICE's chairperson, grew up in the North Lawndale and Austin communities and currently resides with her husband in Montclare. She was active for 20 years as a founding Board member of the Northwest Neighborhood Federation and served as its secretary and real estate committee chair. The former director of the Illinois Coalition Against the Death Penalty, Pat currently leads ICE's Board committee developing its Citizens Now Program.

She is most proud of being part of ICE's current efforts to help Chicago residents "dream the dream and achieve the reality" of new mental health services, affordable homes, and action civics for 5th and 6th graders.

Valencia Hardy

Valencia Hardy grew up on the Near North Side and currently resides in Bronzeville. She received her initial training in community organizing in a series of leadership classes at the Lugenia Burns Hope Center led by Barack Obama. She has been active for a decade with Housing Bronzeville, helping to lead its fight for affordable homes on 500 city-owned vacant lots in her community.

Valencia is most proud of ICE's progress in helping residents create mental health centers and steering youth towards civic responsibility and knowledge, as well as contributing to the Hope Center's affordable homeownership campaign.

Vern Vader

Vern Vader, ICE’s treasurer, grew up in the Logan Square community and currently resides with Pat in Montclare.  During the 1980s, he was a founding Board member of the Northwest Neighborhood Federation, serving for eight years as its chair. He served for six years as a member of the Governing Commission of the Northwest Home Equity Assurance Program, helping to oversee the guaranteed home equity program that the Federation helped create.

Vern is most proud of ICE's work in taking on City Hall and helping them realize there is more than one way to solve a problem.

JOYCE ZICK

Joyce grew up in West Humboldt Park and currently lives in the Norwood Park community. She served as chair of the Citizen Action Program's Anti-Crosstown Coalition in the early 1970s and helped bring local community organizing to the northwest side as a chair of the Organizing Committee for the Northwest Side, founded in 1976. She worked for 30 years as a clinical therapist III at the city's North River Mental Health Center and is the current president of the Governing Commission of the North River Expanded Mental Health Services Program.

She is most proud of ICE for stirring the "fire in the belly" of communities across the city.

Al Robinson

Al Robinson grew up in the Woodlawn community and currently resides downtown. He is the president of Insurers Review Services of Chicago. He also serves as president of the Urban Development Corporation, an extension of Provident Hospital's former development efforts. He was a recipient of the SON/SOC Coalition's "One Person Does Make a Difference Award," leading the Chicago Tribune to congratulate him in an editorial and nominate him for a Nobel Prize if he could bring his childhood friend, Mayor Harold Washington, and the Chicago City Council together in that era.

Al is most proud of ICE's work as an organization that truly makes a difference for people to take more responsibility for their own communities.

Jacquelyn Ingram

Jackie Ingram grew up in North Lawndale and currently resides there, after experiencing life in numerous other Chicago communities as well.  After graduating from Northern Michigan University, and receiving her M.Ed. from Northern Illinois University, she taught elementary school and then worked in a variety of positions as a social worker, in the airline industry, and with SEIU.  As a Young Christian Student, she always was committed to social justice and responded with enthusiasm to the chance to create a new mental health center on the west side.

Jackie is most proud of being in a position to give back to her community in concert with ICE’s dedicated and forward-thinking leaders and staff.

Mark Higginson

Mark was raised on the southwest side of Chicago in the Beverly neighborhood and has been a lifelong Chicagoan.  After graduating from Lawrence University he began a career in the real estate and construction industry.  For the past 20 years, he has owned a construction and development company building and renovating housing throughout the Chicago area.  He has improved Chicago neighborhoods by stabilizing and improving distressed properties.

Mark is most proud that ICE is working to create affordable housing, develop mental health centers, and teach future community leaders about the importance of local engagement, issues that matter most to Chicago's communities.