About CSEF

The Comer Science and Education Foundation is a private, family foundation (a 501(c)(3) tax-exempt entity) dedicated to supporting innovative programs making a positive impact on the lives of individuals and communities. The Foundation was incorporated on June 29, 1998.

The Foundation provides funding for organizations in an array of fields including education, environment, health and social services as well as neighborhood rehabilitation.

Community

The late Gary Comer grew up on the South Side of Chicago in the 1930s. In 1998, he visited his grammar school, Paul Revere Elementary, and discovered that the school, as well as its surrounding neighborhood, faced many challenges. Comer decided to take a holistic approach to solving the problems of this traditionally underserved area of the inner city. With this in mind, he launched a broad and diverse group of initiatives and programs, including:

Gary Comer Youth Center was established to provide academic, social, and recreational programs to children in the Revere neighborhood and South Shore Drill Team.

Gary Comer College Prep, a campus of Noble Street Charter School, opened with its first class of freshmen in 2008. Construction of a new building will begin in the Summer of 2009.

Revere Way is a comprehensive neighborhood revitalization project committed to developing positive change. The project offers affordable housing for families as well as a home improvement program for existing homeowners in the Revere neighborhood. Significant investments in the Paul Revere Elementary School have resulted in dramatic improvements in academic achievement. Thanks to partnerships with the City of Chicago, specific tax dollars will be invested in further community improvements including a streets beautification plan and expanded public school improvements. A new library will open in early 2011.

Comer Children's Hospital at the University of Chicago opened in 2005 to address the health care needs of children of the South Side.

Medical Home Network for the Underserved (MHNU) was established in 2009 to implement the recommendations from A Plan for the Coordination of Health Care Services for Vulnerable Pregnant Women and Children on Chicago's South Side. For further reading on MHNU's vision, click to download a PDF.

In 2002, CSEF presented San Miguel Schools Chicago with a grant to establish the Gary Comer Campus in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago's West Side.

Science

In 2001, Gary Comer and the crew of his yacht Turmoil successfully sailed the Northwest Passage, the sea route through the Arctic Ocean connecting the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Historically, the passage was a treacherous ice-ridden journey that once thwarted many brave explorers, but Turmoil made it through with relative ease. Upon his return, Comer became interested in climate change and in 2004, The Gary Comer Abrupt Climate Change Fellowship was established. The Fellowship supports leading scientists studying the causes and consequences of abrupt changes in climate by funding post-docs, graduate students, and technicians. The program also seeds special abrupt climate change field work and projects requiring fast-track funding. The Foundation also hosts an annual conference for leaders in abrupt climate change research.

CSEF supports an initiative by the Medill School of Journalism to develop a new generation of science journalists knowledgeable about climate change. The Comer/Medill partnership is developing environmental reporters who, in the tradition of public service reporting, produce journalism that informs and engages news audiences, influences policy makers and inspires citizen involvement.

The Gary C. Comer Geochemistry Building at Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, Columbia University, opened in 2004. Lamont geochemist Wallace Broecker provided central evidence of how the oceans interact with changing climate. Gary Comer and Broecker formed a friendship while developing the Fellowship program, and his involvement with the Foundation's climate change work continues today.

CSEF supports Global Research Technologies, a research and development company dedicated to the commercialization of technology for the capture of carbon dioxide directly from ambient air, offering efficient and economic solutions to CO2 emissions management and global climate change.