t’s been a particularly bitter winter for Shantel Gartley and his two teenage sons.

The family first lost a mother to gun violence and then lost their apartment.

“We were just living on the streets and hoping nothing bad happened to us,” Gartley said.

When two of Chicago’s powerhouse non-profits, Digs with Dignity and Dion’s Chicago Dream, learned of the family’s situation, they went to work. They first secured the family an apartment and then, with the financial assistance and muscle power of the Chicago Blackhawks Foundation, a truck full of furniture was unloaded into it.