Chicago Service Corps is a civic service program for ages 10 and up that starts with volunteers. Each finished frunchroom zone, the area around a neighborhood's new public plaza, gets paid teen crews and Corps Leaders. It costs about $20 million a year by Year 10, paid from the Chicago Remodel Fund.
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PART OF THE NEW BURNHAM PLAN
WARRANTY
Chicago Service Corps
The Service Corps gives teens paid jobs and gives neighbors a way to take care of their own blocks, parks and plazas.
Anyone 10 and older can volunteer. In a University of Chicago trial, young people offered a paid summer job with an adult mentor had 43% fewer violent-crime arrests.
Once Chicago's minimum wage for adults, the Dignity Wage, is about $63,500 a year full time ($30.53 an hour), an 18-year-old can walk into almost any job. A 15-year-old can't, because child labor law keeps most young teens out. The Service Corps gives them real work in their own neighborhood, taking care of the plazas, parks, greened lots and blocks that the plan's renovation of the city builds.
There's a place for every age. Volunteers start at 10 in the Junior Corps and go all the way up to the Senior Corps for 55 and older. Teens 14 to 17 can join the paid Leadership Track at $17.05 an hour, working in crews of 20 led by an adult Corps Leader. It's open to any teen, with guaranteed spots for young people in foster care, involved in the justice system, facing housing instability, or out of school and work. Corps Leaders earn the full Dignity Wage. Nobody turns 18 and is left with nothing: at 18, a teen moves up to Corps Leader if a spot is open, or gets first claim on the next one.
It's built on what worked in the University of Chicago trial: a paid job with an adult mentor, which is why every crew has its own Corps Leader. For parents, it means a paycheck, a crew and an adult in charge.
WHAT IT WON'T DO
It doesn't ask for a big time commitment. Volunteers drop in when they can, with no required hours, and earn badges, gear, museum passes and donated tickets.
It isn't limited to one kind of kid. The paid track is open to any teen, and guaranteed spots make sure the young people who need it most get in.
It doesn't make volunteers wait. The volunteer tracks start right away, citywide. Paid crews are added as each neighborhood's rebuild around its new plaza is finished, because the rebuild is what gives them a job to do.
How it connects
Nothing in this plan works alone. These are the questions people ask next, and the policies that answer them.
What will they be taking care of? They take care of the new neighborhood plazas and main streets, called frunchrooms, and the parks and gardens that City in a Garden adds to every neighborhood.
Complete Neighborhoods: The Frunchroom →
City in a Garden →
What happens after 18? The Chicago Trades Pipeline trains Chicagoans, with the unions, for careers rebuilding the city, with no college debt.
Chicago Trades Pipeline →
Dignity Wage →
What else keeps young people safe? The Safe Streets Initiative funds what's been proven in trials to cut crime, like lit alleys, greened empty lots and summer jobs for teenagers.
Safe Streets Initiative →
FISCAL IMPACT
Investment Cost
RENOVATION STEP
Warranty
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Where it ranks
OUR PRIORITIES
#29 of 33
SMALLER MOVE
30 / 100
Daily life
Long-term future
Reach
Unlocks
PROVEN It is a civic service program for ages 10 and up. Young Chicagoans take care of their own neighborhoods' plazas and parks, and there are paid positions for teens and adults.
When you'd feel it: Within Year 1.
See all the priorities
How I set them
02
How it works
Six tracks
The Corps has six tracks: Junior Corps (ages 10–13), Corps Volunteer (14–17), Leadership Track (14–17, paid), Civic Corps (18 and up), Corps Leaders (18 and up, paid) and Senior Corps (55 and up).
Volunteers everywhere, from the start
The four volunteer tracks are drop-in, citywide and open to anyone, with no required hours. Volunteers earn badges, gear, museum passes and donated tickets. Volunteers don't need a frunchroom nearby. A frunchroom is the free public plaza the plan builds at the center of a neighborhood.
Leadership Track
Teens 14 to 17 work about 460 hours a year: 10 hours a week in the school year and 20 in summer, in groups of 20 with a Corps Leader. It's open to any teen. Young people in foster care, involved in the justice system, facing housing instability, or out of school and work get guaranteed spots through referrals from city agencies, schools and juvenile justice partners, with no proof of their history required.
Youth pay
The Leadership Track pays whichever is higher: $17.05 an hour, rising every year with the cost of living, or half the adult floor of the Dignity Wage, the plan's minimum wage for adults.
Corps Leaders
Corps Leaders can be any adult 18 or older. They run neighborhood chapters and lead the teen groups. They are paid the full Dignity Wage, about $63,500 a year full time ($30.53 an hour today).
Paid crews grow with the plazas
Each completed frunchroom zone adds 40–50 paid teens and 4–5 Corps Leaders, who handle setup and upkeep in the zone: closing streets to through traffic, setting up and caring for furniture, running programs, and tending greened lots and trees.
Turning 18
A teen who turns 18 moves up to Corps Leader if a spot is open, or into Civic Corps with first claim on the next opening in their zone.
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What it costs
Leadership Track wages (about 1,440 teens × 460 hours at $17.05)
~$11.3M
Corps Leader wages (about 144 leaders × 1,000 hours)
~$4.4M
Central staff
~$1.3M
Gear and materials
~$2.0M
Transportation, perks, events and administration
~$1.1M
Chicago Remodel Fund line
$20M a year
Estimated yearly cost at Year 10
~$20.1M
The cost starts small and grows as each zone opens. The wage lines are arithmetic from headcount, hours and the wage; staff, gear and administration are rough estimates. The Chicago Remodel Fund, the plan's voter-approved neighborhood fund on the property tax, has a $20 million a year Service Corps line that pays for the whole program, including the Leadership Track and Corps Leader wages (about $15.7 million at Year 10). Paying teens $17.05 instead of half the adult floor adds about $1.2 million a year at Year 10, and that's included.
04
What it takes to make it happen
CITY COUNCIL
Fund it through the Remodel Fund's $20 million Service Corps line. The youth pay rate depends on the Dignity Wage ordinance.
MAYOR AND DEPARTMENT OF FAMILY AND SUPPORT SERVICES
Run the program and the referral system that fills the guaranteed Leadership Track spots.
SPRINGFIELD
No new state law is needed.
VOTERS
No separate referendum is needed. It's paid through the Remodel Fund, whose property tax line goes to voters on the March 21, 2028 primary ballot.
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Timeline
UPON TAKING OFFICE
All four volunteer tracks open citywide.
AS THE FIRST FRUNCHROOM ZONES ARE COMPLETED
The first paid Leadership Track groups and Corps Leaders start in those zones. The frunchroom plan puts its first completions in Year 3.
EACH NEW ZONE AFTER THAT
Each new zone adds 40–50 paid teens and 4–5 Corps Leaders.
YEAR 10
The policy estimates 1,440 paid teens and 144 Corps Leaders, at $20.1 million a year.
06
Where it's worked
Chicago
In a University of Chicago randomized study of One Summer Chicago Plus, teens offered a paid summer job with an adult job mentor (about one for every ten teens) had 43% fewer violent-crime arrests over the next 16 months. Most of the drop came after the summer ended. A version that swapped some work hours for social-emotional lessons did no better or worse.
SOURCE: J-PAL SUMMARY OF HELLER, SCIENCE (2014) ↗
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Chicago today
Since July 1, 2026, Chicago's wage for subsidized youth and transitional jobs programs is $17.05 an hour, the same as the full minimum wage.
SOURCE: O'MALLEY & MADDEN, P.C., JULY 1, 2026 ↗
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Illinois
State law lets employers pay workers under 18 $13 an hour instead of $15 until they pass 650 hours in a year. After that they get the adult rate.
SOURCE: ILLINOIS PAYROLL GUIDE, ILLINOIS MINIMUM WAGE 2026 ↗
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Sources
J-PAL summary of Heller, Science (2014)
O'Malley & Madden, P.C., July 1, 2026
Illinois Payroll Guide, Illinois minimum wage 2026
WHAT YOU CAN DO
Anyone in Chicago age 10 or older can volunteer with the Service Corps, doing cleanups and planting trees in their own neighborhood. There are no required hours, and volunteers earn badges, gear, museum passes and donated tickets. Teenagers 14 to 17 can join the paid Leadership Track at $17.05 an hour, which opens in each neighborhood once its new plaza is finished.
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