Progress Illinois

For 32 years Janet Edburg worked as a laborer at Northbrook-based Leedal, Inc. helping to manufacture laboratory equipment like stainless steel sinks.

A mother of three, Edburg became a victim of corporate downsizing in 2008, and lacking a high-school diploma she has struggled to find work since then.

“I’ve gone into a very deep depression, even felt suicidal,” Edburg said at a Chicago Jobs with Justice rally on Friday afternoon. “One of my comrades here took me in. I was ready to be off on the streets, homeless. And if it wasn’t for him I would be.”

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Elizabeth Jones, a senior at Frederick Douglas Academy High School on Chicago’s West Side, testified at a Chicago Urban League event today that teens “actually like jobs” and crave the self-esteem and independence that comes with employment.

Thanks to federal funding and a visit by the non-profit West Side Health Authority to her high school, Jones briefly landed a job. But now federal funds for youth jobs – applied in local initiatives like Chicago summer youth jobs and Put Illinois to Work – have mostly run dry, a problem for the many Chicago youth who have few available support systems. Read more »