A Grand Plan in Action

The original premise of the nonprofit Irish Children’s Fund was to bring 150 12-year-olds — equal numbers of Protestants and Catholics, boys and girls, many of them poor and from single-parent homes — from these divided communities to America for five weeks in the summer to live with host families and provide them with shared experiences that could change their lives. Chicago, with its heavily Irish population, was a logical venue to find host families and financing.