The Flossmoor Gentlemen’s Caucus was created in 2025 to fill two needs the founders identified in the community — an effective means to give people a voice in local affairs and a way to get more men involved in community service and leadership.
Co-founder Qadree Holmes said the idea for the new organization emerged from a meeting he had with Shayne Evans. Holmes had been immersed in the municipal election, in which his husband, Troy Holmes, ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the Flossmoor Board of Trustees.
“There were so many people that said, the politicians show up and then the election’s over and they never see the politicians again,” Qadree said. “Folks felt like, ‘Hey, my voice isn’t heard.’”
As he and Evans talked about the situation, they decided to create an opportunity for more people to be involved.
“Why are we not getting folks together and figuring out how we can do better within the community and have a stronger kind of community voice?” Qadree said.
The decision to focus on bringing together the men of the community was based in part on recognition that women in Flossmoor have long had a number of active organizations to get involved with. Holmes and Evans thought it would fill a gap to create similar opportunities for men to step up and contribute to the community.
Kevin Dorsey, a Flossmoor trustee and a member of the caucus leadership, said he had been thinking about ways to bring the community together, and when he learned of the caucus, he felt it would accomplish what he envisioned.
Holmes and Evans held two small meetings in their homes last year to form the core group, then in November they held a bigger event at Flossmoor Social downtown.
That event brought a crowd that filled the restaurant space.
“It was pretty magical, because it was clear that the men of the community wanted to be able to get together and be social,” Holmes said. “We have all of these great folks that live within the same community and never really realize that they could be doing business together or could be impacting each other’s lives together or impacting each other’s children’s lives together.”
The next meeting on Feb. 11 was a general meeting designed to introduce the organization to more men, recruit more members and start filling committees to pursue the caucus’s three main missions: membership and community service, non-partisan political engagement and school support.
The group’s goal is to sponsor six community service projects per year.
Political engagement began in advance of the March 17 primary election. At the Feb. 11 caucus meeting, the Democratic Party candidates for Cook County Board seats in the 5th and 6th districts attended to introduce themselves and their policy priorities. At a November 2025 meeting, 2nd Congressional District candidate Yumeka Brown spoke.
The caucus is also connected to a relatively new group, Dad Force One, that is providing mentorship and support for Flossmoor Hills School students. Troy and Qadree Holmes help lead that effort along with several other dads, including Robert Kyler and Jelani Haynes. Tyler Wheeler serves as the group’s teacher liaison.
