Education + Opportunity
Literacy, tutoring, authorship, scholarships, job sharing, mentorship, and pathways that help students move forward.
We are Endure Charities
Opportunity should be within every young person’s reach.
We help girls, young people, families, and underserved communities grow through education, literacy, youth arts, wellness, nutrition, mental-health support, mentorship, scholarships, and experiences that create belonging.
Education · Wellness · Arts · Community
Who we are
Built in community. Proven through service.
Endure Charities is a multi-award-winning nonprofit with more than two decades of experience creating access, confidence, health, and opportunity. Our work begins with young people—especially girls—and grows outward to strengthen their families, schools, and communities.
20+ years of service
20K+ participants reached
100% free community programming
What Endure means
Whole-person support that moves with the community.
Endure meets young people with the support, experiences, and relationships that help them imagine more for themselves—and then gives them practical ways to move toward it.
Education creates access. Wellness builds confidence. The arts create belonging. Mentorship and scholarships open doors. Community experiences show every participant that they are part of something larger.
Young people→Education→
Wellness→Arts→
Mentorship→Opportunity→
Stronger communities
What we do
Programs designed around the whole person.
Wellness + Prevention
Fitness, nutrition, mental-health education, screenings, senior wellness, and support for healthier daily living.
Arts + Belonging
Dance, performance, youth arts, leadership, public celebrations, and experiences that make young people feel seen.
Community proof
Free care, real capacity limits, measurable need.
20K
people already connected to the work
20K+participants reached
95%reported program success
25participants per current 6-month cycle
100%free to underserved communities
Endure's reach spans mental-health support, tutoring, nutrition, cardio and strength training, youth arts, dancers, athletes, seniors, and families navigating preventable health barriers.
Sponsors + strategic partners
One mission. Many doors into impact.
Endure's work grows through aligned organizations that contribute expertise, reach, resources, and meaningful experiences. Body by Ivory brings neighborhood wellness leadership. Advocate Health expands preventive care and education. Chicago Bulls and United Center experiences give young people a visible public stage. Together, these relationships help Endure deepen its Chicago roots and grow its presence in Atlanta and Miami.
Founder + Co-CEO
The woman behind the work.
Kim Keller-Lofton
Founder of the multi-award-winning nonprofit Endure Charities, Kim Keller-Lofton has spent more than two decades building community youth arts and literacy programs with deep roots across Chicago.
Her reach has grown through Los Angeles, New York, Miami, Atlanta, London, and Ghana—carrying Endure's model of education, empowerment, performance, and service into communities that need it most.
Today, Kim is inviting partners who believe in the work to help carry Endure into its next chapter.
Co-CEO, Endure · CEO, Body by Ivory
The man behind the movement.
Ivory Lofton is a foundational force behind Endure's wellness mission. Through Body by Ivory, he turns the vision into care in motion: fitness, nutrition, prevention, screenings, senior health, and community trust.
Together, Endure, Body by Ivory, and Advocate Health connect trusted neighborhood leadership with institutional care—creating year-round wellness experiences that meet families where they are.
Beyond Chicago
The impact story reaches Africa, too.
Endure's work also carries a global service thread through Mabasa Relief Initiative: school support, disease prevention, sanitary resources, clean water access, and practical infrastructure for young people and families.
The opportunity reaches beyond a single celebration in Chicago. It connects local partnership to a model of education, health, and practical service that can travel.
The United Center experience
100,000 students. Six champion books. One arena filled with possibility.
Students read their way there through a year-long literacy and essay initiative built around books of empowerment, authorship, discipline, and service.
In April 2027, Us All Day is envisioned as a large-scale girl empowerment experience at the United Center: literacy, arts, sports, speakers, performances, wellness activations, and mental health support. It is not separate from Endure's mission—it is the moment the full mission becomes visible in one place.
The Giant Slayer journey
A challenge that carries the mission toward Giving Tuesday.
Schools divide the work, teams conquer individual goals, and thousands of givers become one visible force for girls.
Explore the campaign- 01Accept the challenge
Schools and community leaders form their teams.
- 02Build momentum
Six weeks of fundraising turn individual action into shared progress.
- 03Reach Giving Tuesday
The campaign arrives with a united community of life changers.
- 04Fund what lasts
Support expands education, wellness, arts, scholarships, and opportunity.
Student outcome
Aaron and Eric Doxy are the education throughline.
Former Endure students and TSU graduates, Aaron and Eric carry the clearest proof that discipline, care, and belief can travel with a young person long after the program ends.
“Endure taught us how to be dedicated to a purpose and persevere until we obtained desired results. We learned that we had no limits if we put the work in and remained strong in our faith.”
Aaron & Eric Doxy · Former Endure students
Watch their storyThe path students follow
Reading becomes access. Access becomes impact.
Education
Build literacy, essay, youth arts, and authorship pathways that connect discipline to opportunity.
Year-round care
Connect young people with mental health, nutrition, fitness, mentoring, and community support.
April 2027
Bring girls together at Us All Day for literacy, arts, sports, wellness, and an official book launch.
July 2027
Carry that impact into Endure’s anniversary weekend and the next season of year-round programming.
The feeling
This should feel like Chicago choosing hope in public.
Youth engagement, family participation, community leaders, live production, service, and sponsor activations can make each celebration bigger than one event while keeping Endure's mission at the center.
Rollout
The public story builds in chapters.
Championship kickoff gala
A red-carpet fundraiser and partner preview. Final date and venue to be confirmed.
Us All Day
A girl empowerment day at the United Center centered on education, literacy, arts, sports, and wellness.
Endure anniversary day
Youth programming, community participation, and Endure’s live award-winning production.
Health + recognition
A proposed community health challenge and awards celebration recognizing service, progress, and community leadership.
Year-round runway
Expanded productions, education, wellness, scholarships, partnerships, and year-round community programming.
One initiative in the larger vision
Help give the work a permanent home.
$100,000
The Endure Community Wellness Center
This goal helps create dedicated space for health education, mental-wellness sessions, tutoring and literacy, a commercial kitchen, nutrition programs, cardio and strength training, youth arts, athletic preparation, screenings, senior wellness, and year-round community care. Help build the centerThe ask
Help build what lasts.
Endure is inviting sponsors and partners to strengthen education, youth arts, literacy, wellness, mentorship, scholarships, public experiences, global service, and the next generation of Endure programs.