Partners & Programs

Central Christian Church is a worshipping congregation that was originally established in Kankakee in 1893. Worship is offered on the 2nd & 4th Sundays of the month at 10:00 a.m. at The Grow Center.

BIBRVC is the local chapter of the national Blessings in a Backpack organization. Our local chapter provides weekend nutrition for nearly 300 students in the Kankakee River Valley.

The Grow Center partners with the YWCA Kankakee to provide anti-racism education for groups, organizations, businesses, and the community.

Learn the parts of a story and techniques to make your storytelling even better.

The Network‘s Headquarters are in The Grow Center. They offer a variety of monthly programming.

The Grow Center’s staff have served on the Community Commission to End Domestic Violence. Additionally, our Program & Communications Director, Rev. Kelly Perotti, has completed 40-hour domestic violence training and wrote her Master’s Thesis on The Church and Domestic Violence: Breaking Free from Patriarchal Theology to Create Happy, Healthy, and Thriving Lives.

Learn Couple Communication (TM) skills from certified facilitators. Improve your day-to-day communication, make better decisions & resolve issues skillfully, and increase satisfaction in your relationship.

The Grow Center has provided space for Catholic Charities for their Senior Dine program, workshops about caregiving for loved ones with Alzheimers, drive-through flu shot clinics and other programming for seniors.

The Girl Scouts meet here weekly. We’re glad to partner with them as they build “girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.”

A Podcast About Then and Now featuring educator Dr. Shannon Swilley & Rev. Robert Bushey, Jr. Whenever we discover what history has to offer it grounds us. We appreciate the opportunity to be connected to all that has come before us and all that will follow. We want this podcast to serve as a model for connecting the dots backwards as a means to bringing light and understanding to our current conversations about race and racial identity in America.

Christmas Day, Inc. has held an Annual Christmas Day Dinner for over a quarter of a century. From serving at one site in the beginning, we have grown to now serving free dinners at 10 sites in Kankakee County. The Grow Center (formerly Central Christian Church) has been a Christmas Day Inc site for over a decade.

First Baptist Church of Kankakee meets for worship at The Grow Center on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of the month at 10:00 a.m. with Pastor Joshua Riley.

The River Valley Clergy Alliance is an inclusive and ecumenical group of clergy and religious leaders in the Kankakee River Valley of Illinois.

The Grow Center serves as the polling location for Precinct 5 in Bourbonnais.