Announcing VP for Peter Wulff Center

Christopher Majkowski takes over the nonprofit Peter Wulff Center as the Board Vice President.

This is a brief history of his intellectual, social and economic contribution to the nonprofit program he helped establish in 2003.

Chris was instrumental as a founding team member bringing chess to the northwest suburban area since 2003. He helped create, promote, sponsor chess events, support team members while on a team that persuaded Grandmaster Yury Shulman to take over this thriving award winning program. GM Shulman became a US Chess Champion in 2008 a few years after moving to the area. Chess has profound educational value in developing math, logic, social and cognitive skills. Chess was embraced enthusiastically thanks to the youth who persisted in making it within reach for a wide audience.

Christopher began volunteering as a 9-year-old in about 2002 to help Rishi Sethi, the founder develop a chess program in the northwest suburban Chicago area. There were only a handful of children playing chess at that time and Rishi needed help with ideas on how to teach and engage more students to chess. The concept of introducing chess in an area where very few knew of the game seemed far-fetched at the time but Chris and his brother Scott persisted in their support. They helped Rishi organize a Grandmaster simultaneous chess tournament where 50 people signed up to play against a Czech grandmaster, Pavel Blatny. The funds raised for the tournament enabled them to buy chess sets. This was a first visit by a Chess Grandmaster in the northwest suburbs.

Another unique feature of this chess program was the introduction of food sales during chess events to raise funds for expanding the program. Visit: https://shulmanchess.com/history-of-chess-in-barrington/

The population of chess players increased rapidly as students were attracted to the game and its support of social entrepreneurship. Many students learned chess to start teaching and volunteering to advance the depth and reach of the program. Meanwhile Rishi Sethi managed to invite Grandmaster Yury Shulman originally from Belarus but working in New York to teach at a chess camp held in Barrington High School. Chris and his brother again sought sponsorship for this exciting opportunity.

The chess program rapidly expanded and soon players needed chess tournaments to become US Chess Federation rated players. In 2006 Chris and his brother accompanied Rishi to arrange a chess tournament in a hospital conference room at St Alexius Hospital in Hoffman Estates. 70 players participated and steadily the program expanded Chris secured funding to sponsor a chess mission trip to Leon, Mexico where the Barrington Rotary club paid for the high school chess team to have a grandmaster accompany 20 chess players in March of 2005.

Chris has helped establish, innovate and work as a valuable team member to create a thriving nonprofit chess program now called Chess Without Borders. From having a handful of chess players in 2000 to actively engaging 500 students per year to learn and advance their knowledge. The program has won many awards for its unique combination of teaching chess with service and philanthropy raising over $250,000 for various charities. Visit: https://shulmanchess.com/biography-of-chess-without-borders/

Students like Chris were instrumental in volunteering to promote chess and raise funds for various charities with the fees collected through hosting chess events. www.shulmanchess.com

The concept of youth social entrepreneurship was born because children like Chris were determined to bring chess to the area and also enjoyed the leadership roles they played in distributing funds they collected from chess events. This social, emotional, intellectual, economic growth was possible because of this unique mission of the program.

Tragically a few years ago a 41-year-old chess volunteer died suddenly and his family donated funds to start a nonprofit in his name. The Peter Wulff Center was created to continue supporting values and knowledge gained from early experiences of struggling to develop chess in the area. The Peter Wulff Center carries on the mission of educating students living on the margins in society in Delhi, India and continuing the youth social entrepreneurship started in 1999.

15 years later Chris returns as a Board member at the Peter Wulff Center sharing expertise learned when he was a youth social entrepreneur. Chris is a dynamic leader and mentor to youth volunteers. As a team member he recently participated in a dinner in Barrington IL that raised over $41,000 for the St Anne’s Catholic Church’s Social Justice Ministry. https://www.peterwulffcenter.o... He resourcefully organized a fundraiser for the Peter Wulff Center in Chicago that introduced new members to the work being done in India and to meet the 2 teenagers Krish and Jack whom he is mentoring. Chris is dedicated, resourceful, creative, able to learn fast and gently offers constructive criticism to the group. In the board meeting last month he explained to the members how we needed to introduce the work to a new audience. And at the Chicago fundraiser he delivered bringing a younger age group of friends to learn about the work of the center. The intergenerational nature of the team develops cultural, social and economic opportunities for the people who are curious to learn.

There are internships available at the Peter Wulff Center in India and one of the people attending said, "I might just go to meet these students in India".

Chris will be a valuable VP at the Peter Wulff Center. The team at the Peter Wulff Center has raised over $318,439.00 in local and global charities over the last 25 years.