Today we’d like to introduce you to Klára Moldová.
Please kick things off for us. We’d love to hear the story.
In April of 1872, several Bohemian immigrants in Chicagoland put together a charter document and created a group, the Freethinkers Bohemian School Association, This corporation fostered several Czech language classes, mostly in Sokol buildings in Chicago and suburbs close to the Pilsen and East California areas. In 1908 the FBSA purchased a building in Morton Park (today’s Cicero). The school’s current home at West 22nd Place was established in 1921 as the Patronát české svobodomyslné školy v Morton Park. In 1937, the organization filed to change the name to T. G. Masaryk Free Thinking School Association in Cicero, Illinois.
The Patron Organization of the Bohemina Freethinkers School – the T. G. Masaryk Czech School is a not-for-profit organization with a 501(c)(3) tax status. For nearly a century, the association and its school have remained true to their educational, fraternal, and social purposes, maintaining the building and its facilities for community events and for education in Czech language and culture.
Although our school and its building are more than 90 years old, they have recently received a significant increase in community and volunteer support, which has resulted in more classes, more events, and improved facilities. The revitalized T. G. Masaryk Czech School has excellent language, culture, and history classes for people of Czech ancestry as well as anyone interested in the Czech, Moravian, and Slovak cultures.
In 2012 the Foreign Ministry of the Czech government has recognized the contributions of our school and assigned an educator from the Czech Republic to expand and improve the programs we offer for the entire Chicago area. Klára Moldová has been now involved with the school for 5 years. Language classes for all ages and level of expertise are at the forefront of our programs. We have four teachers, native Czech-speakers. Thanks to our links with the Czech government, our teachers now receive intellectual guidance from educational institutions in the Czech Republic as well as books and educational materials for use by our students. Our adult classes include a number of senior citizens, so we can truly say that we are providing lifelong education, from kindergarten to retirement.
We urge everyone to investigate our school programs, cultural events, and our lovely building. To old friends who have not visited the facility and seen the many changes of the past five years, we say “come visit us again for the first time.”
Has it been a smooth road?
Probably as every organization, we never have enough of helping hands and finances to create all our ideas and projects into the reality.
So, as you know, we’re impressed with T. G. Masaryk Czech School – tell our readers more, for example what you’re most proud of as a company and what sets you apart from others.
Every Saturday Czech classes for bilingual children are held at the school. We teach children how to read and write in the language of their parents. During the week, Czech as a second language for adults is being taught. The TGM School also has rooms that are used for lodge meetings and receptions. An updated kitchen and yard are available. The building is now also home to the Czechoslovak Heritage Museum.
Since we are Czechs, we have to take our classes beyond language, history, and culture and into the realm of cooking. The baking and cooking classes we have held in the past years have shown that folks are interested in preparing the food as well as eating it. Visitors from the Czech Republic have conducted egg decorating and dessert-making classes and showed our participants techniques that “grandma had not passed down”.
We are trying to feed our stomachs as well as souls. Various movie screenings, workshops, literary evenings with writers, illustrators and publishers from the Czech Republic are on our cultural schedule as well.
We are enhancing our cooperation with other Czech oriented organizations in the Chicagoland area as well as with institutions in the Czech Republic (Charles University in Prague). Once a year the school organizes a trip to the Czech Republic.
For book lovers, we have recently launched the Czech Library Chicago – 3 thousand Czech volumes are available for anyone to enjoy!
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I enjoy the variety of options Chicago gives everyone no matter how bizarre your hobbies and interests are. The only thing I could imagine my life without is traffic and the feeling of a wasted time while driving and not actually getting anywhere!
Contact Info:
- Address: 5701 W 22nd Place, Cicero, IL 60804
- Website: www.czechschoolchicago.org, czechlibrarychicago.org
- Phone: 708-656-9810
- Email: info@czechschoolchicago.org
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/T-G-Masaryk-School-158878334146036/?ref=bookmarks
- Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/t-g-masaryk-czech-school-cicero
Image Credit:
Klára Moldová
Irena Čajková
Vojtěch Molda
Getting in touch: VoyageChicago is built on recommendations from the community; it’s how we uncover hidden gems, so if you know someone who deserves recognition please let us know here.
