Our Mission

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The Making a Change Group (MACG) is dedicated to empowering youth, strengthening families, and serving as a community connector in Chester, PA and its surrounding townships. We accomplish this mission by developing and implementing initiatives that increase access to resources for those we serve - supporting social, emotional, and economic change.

Recognizing that his hometown of Chester, PA has faced systemic socio-economic challenges that compromise resident’s abilities to flourish, Cory Long felt called to make a change.  His initial efforts focused on youth development.   He created a youth mentoring program in 2004 to which the City of Chester ultimately lent financial support, expanding services to include recreational and violence prevention activities. Thus, Making a Change Group (MACG) was born. MACG was formally incorporated and recognized as a 501C in 2016. Mentoring youth underscored for Cory the reality that it is vital to work with the families of young people as well as the larger community to truly affect change.

Leveraging his experience as a community organizer/promoter and his belief that we are all called to serve, Cory continues to lead MACG in finding solutions to challenges faced by individual City residents as well as the community as a whole.

  • In the 2019-2020 school year, MACG provided youth development activities to 117 students across six schools.

  • In summer 2020, MACG organized five major trash clean-ups throughout the City of Chester.

  • In July and August 2020, MACG team members distributed 1,000 recreational backpacks as part of our V-PRYDE initiative (Violence Prevention Recreation Youth Development and Engagement).

  • MACG provided critical COVID relief (food, essential supplies, PPE) to 40 families as the pandemic unfolded.

  • Our FaceBook live broadcasts are providing outreach and information-sharing to a minimum of 700 people daily – with some individual broadcasts reaching as many as 5,000 viewers.

  • In November 2020, MACG launched Connected Visions, a new case management-based program which has the capacity to serve 35 families as any point in time, supporting household members (adults children and youth) as they address trauma, break cycles of poverty and achieve healthier lives as individuals and household units. By the end of December 2020, Connected Visions had reached 15 households comprised of 116 adults and children/youth. Recruitment is ongoing.

  • In December 2020, MACG – working with community partners – distributed 2,000 toys to 400 families via a Multicultural Toy Drive.