Kyler Winfrey Digital Media Specialist/Good Neighbor Campaign liaison
Paul Goyette Photographer
EDITORIAL BOARD
Morris Reed Westside Health Authority/CEO
Karl Brinson Westside Branch NAACP/President
Bernard Clay Introspect Youth Services/Executive Director
Michael Romain Village Free Press/Publisher
CONTACT US at stories@ourculture.us
VISIT US ONLINE at ourculture.us
COMMUNITY NEWS BRIEFS
Sankofa Wellness Center Breaks Ground
[By RUSH Stories] On Sept. 16, the Garfield Park Rite to Wellness Collaborative, The Community Builders and MAAFA Redemption Project, along with Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson, broke ground on the first major component of the Sankofa Wellness Village — the Sankofa Wellness Center.
Joined by anchor partners Erie Family Health Centers, Rush University System for Health, YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago and others, the Sankofa Wellness Center aims to improve health outcomes for Garfield Park residents and close a life expectancy gap of 13 years between members of the community and those of the Loop, just 5 miles away. By holistically addressing many of the factors that impact this disparity — health and wellness, lack of resources, quality of life, economic opportunity, and community violence — the Wellness Center team will work to provide sustainable solutions led by community members.
Slated for completion by the end of 2025, the Wellness Center will support the Garfield Park Community through:
• Primary medical care, including reproductive, behavioral, and dental health services; substance use disorder treatment; health education; social drivers of health resource navigation, and training for future community-based health care staff, supported by Erie Family Health Centers regardless of insurance status or immigration status
• Health and social needs screenings for residents, mental health services and training, health promotion and disease prevention programming, and workforce development, supported by Rush University System for Health.
• Fitness services and equipment, sports programming, group fitness and movement, youth and teen programs, indoor gymnasium and walking track, and dropin childcare, supported by the YMCA of Metropolitan Chicago
The Wellness Center will also be home to a café, credit union, community education and multipurpose room, and terrace space. West Side United, committed to eliminating the stark life expectancy gap experienced by residents in ten Black and Brown neighborhoods on Chicago’s West Side, will move its head-
quarters to the Wellness Center. Read more at rush.edu/news/sankofa-wellness-center-breaks-ground.
Gov. Pritzker Visits Austin to Help Announce Multimillion Dollar Commitment
Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker visited the burgeoning Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation at 5500 W. Madison St. in Austin on Sept. 10 to join JPMorganChase in announcing the bank’s more than $10 million commitment to “advance affordable housing development and revitalize neighborhoods in Chicago’s South and West sides.
“The new loan to the Chicago Community Loan Fund (CCLF), a certified Community Development Financial Institution (CDFI), is part of JPMorganChase’s $200 million commitment to Chicago,” JPMorganChase officials explained in a statement.
“The loan will support CCLF’s Communities of Color Loan Program, which provides low-cost capital to developers targeting projects impacting communities of color in low-to-moderate income neighborhoods throughout Chicago.” Read more about the commitment at jpmorganchase.com/newsroom/pressreleases/2024/chicago-cclf.
Young Westsiders Spread Hope in Austin
Teens and young adults participants in Westside Health Authority’s Youth Innovation Department toolk to the streets on Sept. 10 to pass out hygiene products and narcan kits to people experiencing homelessness in Austin.
“The Austin youth show that they can make a difference impacting the lives of men and women in need,” Youth Innovation Department leaders wrote on the program’s Instagram page.
Community leaders and elected officials break ground on the Sankofa Wellness Center in West Garfield Park on Sept. 16. | KENN COOK JR.
Austin Coming Together Executive Director Darnell Shields, Gov. Pritzker, WHA CEO Morris Reed, and Chicago Community Loan Fund President Calvin Holmes on Sept. 10. | KENN COOK JR.
Members of WHA's Youth Innovation Department on Sept. 10.
EVENTS & RESOURCES [ [
Chef Showcase and Movie Night | Wednesday, Oct. 2, 5:30 to 9 p.m., Bethel New Life, 1150 N. Lamon Ave. | Austin Eats will host this free Chef Showcase and Movie Night featuring a screening of NBA Star Chris Paul’s and Grammy-winner Billie Eilish’s movie about food justice entitled “They’re Trying To Kill Us.” Enjoy free dinner bites, the Best of the West Mac & Cheese Cook-Off, garden tours, fun, and freebies, and hear about the new Verses & Vittles Literary Slam. Register at bit.ly/ae-chef24. Enter the Best of the West Mac & Cheese Cook-Off at bit.ly/best-west-mac-2. Enter the Verses & Vittles Lyrical Slam contest at bit.ly/ae-verses.
Many things are happening on the Westside in the next several days and weeks. Below, we’ve compiled a list of some of them. If you want to add your event and/or resource to this guide, email stories@ourculture.us.
Radio-Controlled Model Sailboat Training and Racing | Sunday, Sept. 29, 1:30 to 5 p.m., Columbus Park Refectory, 5701 W. Jackson Blvd. | Come and enjoy an adventure with the water for a fun and safe experience at the Columbus Park Lagoon and Columbus Park Refectory. Free hands-on classroom instruction and practice for those 11 years old and over. For more info, contact Ronald Reid at rreid@cana16.com or (708) 308-8985.
Ald. Taliaferro’s Annual Flu Clinic | Tuesday, Oct. 1, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 6272 W. North Ave. | COVID-19 and flu vaccines are available for ages 6 months and older. For more info, contact the 29th Ward Office at (773) 2376460.
Gun Education and Awareness Dialogue
| Friday, Oct. 4, 5:30 p.m., BUILD Chicago, 5100 W. Harrison St. | Join BUILD Chicago, ACT, Yrudition, Appleseed and Stick Talk for meaningful dialogue on gun education and awareness. For more info, contact Edwina Hamilton at (773) 227-2880.
Domestic Violence Rally March and Resource Fair | Saturday, Oct. 5, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., 25th District Station, 5555 W. Grand Ave. | Join the 25th District Chicago Police and the Domestic Violence Subcommittee for this march and fair. The step-off is 10:30 a.m. (weather permitting). For more info, contact (312) 746-5090.
Youth Cooking Class | Saturday, Oct. 5, 10 a.m. to noon, GSJ Family Center, 1256 N. Waller Ave. | Come out and learn the basics of cooking with Chef Xavier. Class is free. To register, call (872) 813-2879 or visit gsjcenter. com.
RECURRING EVENTS
Every Thursday, 1 to 6 p.m. (rain or shine), Austin Town Hall Park, 5610 W. Lake St., buy affordable fresh produce, baked goods, prepared foods, and more at the Austin Town Hall City Market. For more info, visit austintownhallcitymarket.com.
Every Thursday, the Austin Satellite Senior Center, 5071 W Congress Pkwy., hosts 9 a.m. line dancing, 10 a.m. quilting classes, and 11 a.m. jewelry-making classes. For more info, call Cynthia Yarrington at (312) 743-1538.
West Side Forward has weekly programming for their Justice Impacted 2 Program. This program is great for those interested in entrepreneurship training, trades certification, wellness support, and more. Sessions are hosted on Tuesdays (10-10:30 a.m.) with Thursday office hours (2 to 4 p.m.), at 4100 W. Ferdinand St. To access the informational sessions, call (267) 807-9605 and use the Access Code 346217.
Every Tuesday (6 to 8 p.m.) is the Circle for Circle Keepers and every Wednesday (6 to 9 p.m.) is Fireside Chats at BUILD Chicago, 5100 W. Harrison. Interested in connecting with and getting to know other Circle Keepers? Desire to fine-tune your circle-keeping skills, while learning new techniques and building resources? For more info and to RSVP, contact Edwina Hamilton at edwinahamilton@ buildchicago.org or (773) 227-2880.
BUILD Chicago, 5100 W. Harrison, hosts a Fitness Lab open Mondays (5 to 7p.m.), Tuesdays (9 a.m. to noon) and Thursdays (5 to 9 p.m.), Wednesday (9 a.m. to noon) and Fridays (5 to 9 p.m.). For more info, contact fitnesslab@buildchicago.org.
Every third Saturday (9 a.m. to noon) and every 4th Tuesday (4 to 6 p.m.), the Hope Community Justice Center hosts legal assistance days at Hope Community Church, 6900 W. Iowa St. These events provide the opportunity to speak to an attorney at low to no cost. For more info, call (773) 921-2243 or visit onehopenation.org.
Every Wednesday (10 a.m. or 6 p.m.), the Young Manufacturing Association will host virtual info sessions for young individuals to learn about various job placement services and training programs in business, manufacturing, entrepreneurship, technology, and more. For more info, contact DeeDee Jones at djones@ mfgren.org.
Every Wednesday (9 a.m. or 4 p.m.), JARC hosts free Application Sessions for Careers in Manufacturing Programs at 9 a.m. and 4 p.m. Running on an open enrollment schedule, these in-person sessions are on the first Wednesday of each month with virtual sessions on the 2nd, 3rd, and 4th Wednesdays of the month. Anyone enrolled in their programs has free access to math, reading, and computer tutors, as well as financial coaching and public benefits screening. For more info or to apply, visit jane-addams.org.
Every Thursday (3 p.m.), the Good Neighbor Campaign hosts its weekly Faith, Family and Community Overcomers Meeting at 5437 W. Division St. Anxiety, fears, and addictions? Let’s talk about them.
The 15th District Police Department (Austin) Beat Meetings happen virtually on the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday of every month. For more information, email CAPS015DISTRICT@chicagopolice.org.
The Austin running crew facilitated by CARA focuses on improving the health and wellness of the Austin Community via walking/running. The group meets every Thursday at 5 p.m. at La Follette Park, 1333 N. Laramie. Learn more at cararuns.org/arc.
So What’s With the New Elected School Board?
On Nov. 5, residents in Chicago will not only vote for president but also for candidates running for the city’s new elected school board. If you have questions about the elected school board, you’re likely not alone. Thankfully, we came across some helpful information on the new entity provided by Chicago Public Schools. Below are some frequently asked questions about the school board that you can also see online at cpsboe.org/electedschool-board. We’ve slightly edited and modified answers for relevance, style, and clarity.
HOW TO BECOME AN ELECTED BOARD MEMBER
Starting Jan. 15, 2025, the Chicago Board of Education, the “Board,” will consist of 21 Board Members. The City of Chicago has been divided into 10 districts (each of which is divided into two subdistricts). More information about those districts, including a map, can be found on the Illinois Senate Redistricting Website ilsenateredistricting.com/chicago-school-board).
Each of the 10 districts will be represented by one elected Board Member and one Board Member who is appointed by the Mayor no later than Dec. 16, 2024. Additionally, by Dec. 16, 2024, the Mayor will appoint one President of the Board. District 5 covers the Westside.
TERMS AND THE PROCESS TO RUN
The Board Members (both the elected and the appointed Members) and the appointed Board President will all serve for two-year terms which begin Jan. 15, 2025.
In order to be placed on the ballot for the Nov. 5, 2024 general election, individuals interested in running for an elected Board Member position must submit a nominating petition with the signatures of at least 1,000, but no more than 3,000 voters living within their electoral district. The petition circulation period began on March 26, 2024, with a filing period from June 17, 2024 to June 24, 2024.
WHO’S RUNNING ON THE WESTSIDE
According to Chalkbeat Chicago, Westside voters will “have just one choice on the ballot for representative in the city’s first school
board elections, after [political consultant] Michilla “Kyla” Blaise submitted her formal withdrawal from the race to the Chicago Board of Elections on [Sept. 6].
“That leaves Aaron “Jitu” Brown as the sole candidate in District 5, which stretches from the West Loop to Austin. It includes 105 schools — the most of any of Chicago’s new school board districts — with 36,485 students enrolled last school year.”
Brown, 58, is the national director of the Journey for Justice Alliance, a national network of community groups organizing for community-driven school improvement. He has a child at Kenwood Academy and lives in Austin. He was endorsed by the Chicago Teachers Union. Read more about him at aaronjitubrown4cps.org.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Kernetha Jones is running as a write-in candidate. Jones is a member of C.A.U.S.E. TEACHERS (the Coalition and Alliance of Urban School Educators), a “community teacher advocacy group,” its Facebook page says.
RESPONSIBILITIES
CPS has a budget of more than $9 billion, which is used to serve over 325,000 students across 634 schools. Governing this organization is a tremendous responsibility for the Board Members selected to lead. Board Members fulfill a number of specific key responsibilities, including, but not limited to:
• Hiring and evaluating the CEO
• Establishing the direction, goals, and priorities for the district
• Approving district policies
• Approving purchasing decisions, contracts, and intergovernmental agreements
• Approving the district budget and capital improvement plan
• Approving the school year calendar
• Approving school continuous improvement plans, school actions, and school charters and contracts
• Approving the dismissal of probationary appointed teachers, contract principals and tenured teachers, and non-probationary educational support personnel
TIME COMMITMENT
Being a Board Member requires an extensive time commitment—potentially more than 25 to 30 hours per month, depending on Board priorities and individual Board Member involvement in committee work, other boards, task forces, and community engagement. These commitments may take place during regular business hours, in the evenings, or on weekends.
Much of a Board Member’s time is spent attending and actively participating in the Board’s public meetings. In preparation for these meetings, Board Members participate in briefings on a monthly basis and are required to read and analyze hundreds of pages of documents each month.
In addition, each Board sets its own priorities for the school year, which often require time commitments above and beyond Board meeting preparation and attendance. For example, Board Members may commit to engaging di-
verse stakeholders by attending community events, hosting Board Office Hours, and conducting school visits.
If, through their Board service, Members are selected to serve on additional boards (e.g., Chicago Teachers’ Pension Fund Board of Trustees or the Public Building Commission Board of Commissioners), these positions require many additional hours of meeting preparation, attendance, and participation.
COMPENSATION
Board Members serve without any compensation. However, Members of the Board may be reimbursed for expenses incurred while in the performance of their duties, subject to Board approval and in accordance with Board policies, rules, and processes. Board Members may also attend professional development and conferences, depending on available funds and in accordance with Board policies, rules, and processes.
Don’t forget to make a plan to vote
On Tuesday, Nov. 5, polling places in Chicago will open from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m. Early voting starts Oct. 21 and runs through Nov. 5. Starting on Oct. 9, you can vote early at 191 N. Clark St. and on the sixth floor of 69 W. Washington St. Any voter in Chicago can vote at any early voting site, no matter where they live in the city. Voters can choose whatever voting site is most convenient for them, including on Election Day. Voting by mail started on Aug. 7.
• Look up your voter information at chicagoelections.gov/voting/your-voter-information
• Get more information on early voting at chicagoelections.gov/voting/early-voting
• Get more information on voting by mail at chicagoelections.gov/voting/vote-mail
Jitu Brown, standing right, is the only candidate for the new elected school board's District 5 whose name will appear on the ballot. | FILE
‘This Isn’t a Job to Us’
Anchor Chicago and Chicago’s Fathers for Change team up to spread peace in Austin on Sept. 11
By Michael Romain | Editor
Austin resident Hyson Harper, 43, is always thinking about the safety of his 4-year-old daughter as she navigates childhood on the Westside.
“I don’t feel my daughter is safe having to walk up and down these streets,” Harper said. “If I feel that way, I know others feel that way.”
Three years ago, Harper turned his concern into action and founded Anchor Chicago, a nonprofit that addresses the social roots of
Austin’s violence.
“Whenever we have violence in our community, first we get to the scene and try to do whatever we can to preserve life,” Harper said.
“We try to relay as much information back to the Chicago Police Department so they can come and take over the scene to make sure that person lives,” he said. “After the traumatic
incident, we work with children and parents in dealing with the mental effects.”
Beyond responding to crime scenes, Harper said his organization’s main focus is preventing the violence. They regularly host community events like food and clothing giveaways and provide services to meet people’s needs.
On Sept. 11, Anchor Chicago partnered with Chicago’s Fathers for Change to host a peace march that started at Laramie and Madison and culminated with a peace gathering at Moore Park, 5085 W. Adams St. in Austin.
“The purpose of our program is to provide resources in areas like mental health, financial literacy, and workforce development to help the community rebuild from the foundation up,” said Kejuan Scott, the director of programming for Chicago’s Fathers for Change.
“We’re creating job training to get people in the job,” he said. “We’re willing to take guys to trade schools so they can get into the trades.”
For Harper, the work he and Scott do isn’t a job, it’s a vocation, a calling.
“If we don’t step up and be part of our community, no one else is going to save our community,” Harper said. “This is where we live, eat, and sleep. We’re not looking for people outside of our community to dictate to us how to solve the problems in our community. We’re going to solve them ourselves.”
Learn more and get involved
For more info on Anchor Chicago and Chicago’s Fathers for Change, visit their websites at anchor-chicago.org and chicagosfathersforchange.org. Harper said both organizations are always looking for donated food and clothes, housing resources for unhoused children, and professional counselors willing to volunteer to provide services for young people.
Members of Chicago's Fathers for Change and Anchor Chicago at a peace gathering in Moore Park in Austin on Sept. 11. | KENN COOK JR.
Anchor Chicago and Chicago's Fathers for Change organized community members for a peace march along Madison Avenue on Sept. 11. | MICHAEL ROMAIN
A community member grills during the peace gathering at Moore Park on Sept. 11 | KENN COOK JR.
Don’t Call It a ‘Desert’ or a
‘Swamp’–It’s
Food ApartheiD
Bringing grocery stores stocked with healthy food to the Westside is more complicated than we think, but the problems aren’t insoluble
By Michael Romain Editor
As Mike Morgan browsed the shelves of the newly renovated and reopened Save A Lot at 420 S. Pulaski Rd. in West Garfield Park on its opening day on Sept. 5, he couldn’t help but notice the improvements.
“This looks great,” Morgan said. “First of all, the minute you walk in the door, there’s some fresh produce. The shelves seem stocked, which wasn’t the case in the old store. You can find staples now. I’ll definitely be shopping here. I just live a block-and-a-half away. Before this store reopened, the closest place I could go was Pete’s over on Western and I don’t have a car.”
The store’s reopening doesn’t only mark a new chapter in Morgan’s life, it’s a refreshing turn of page for the store itself and its new owners, Ohio-based Yellow Banana. In February 2022, the store, then under old ownership, closed due to a rat
infestation after multiple failed health inspections, Block Club Chicago reported that year.
Yellow Banana took ownership of the Save A Lot in the same month and briefly reopened the store before closing it in 2023 for renovations expected to take about two months.
The reopened Save A Lot in West Garfield Park—the only full-service grocer in the community area of around 17,000 people—was the first store Yellow Banana opened with help from a $13.5 million subsidy the city approved in 2023. Yellow Banana plans to open five more Save A Lot stores on the South Side before Thanksgiving as part of the subsidy with the city. Two other South Side stores, including a recently opened Save A Lot in Englewood, are not part of that subsidy.
Since landing the public funding, however, Yellow Banana has drawn widespread scrutiny and skepticism from community members and the media.
“A year after the city approved putting nearly $14 million toward renovating six Save-A-Lot grocery stores, none have
opened,” Crain’s Chicago Business reported in May.
In August, the Chicago Sun-Times published an investigation into Yellow Banana’s financial status and many operating problems.
“Yellow Banana is in line for more than $20 million in city and federal funding, including $13.5 million from the city of Chicago if it hits its city-set deadline in April,” the Sun-Times reported. “But the financial challenges piling up against Yellow Banana raise questions about whether it will be able to fulfill its obligation and about why city officials are counting on a company that has fallen short of its promises.
“The company’s debts stem from a number of vendors, utility providers, property tax authorities and municipalities, records show. The latest lawsuit, filed last month, accuses the company of stiffing a Michigan grocery supplier of $924,000 in unpaid bills.”
Supermarket News, an industry publication, quoted Brittain Ladd, a supply chain and strategy consultant who questioned
The Save A Lot at 5555 W. North Ave. in Austin that closed in 2020. The abandoned building has become an eyesore | KENN COOK JR.
The Save A Lot that opened at 420 S. Pulaski Rd. in West Garfield Park on Sept. 5. | KENN COOK JR.
Yellow Banana’s qualifications.
“I understand the desire on the part of companies to want to do things that they think will change the outcome of their company, but you have to have a level of skill, and you have to have the right leadership,” Ladd said. “So when I heard that they had been granted $26 million to open up these six stores, my initial reaction was, ‘This is going to fail, and I think it’s going to fail spectacularly because there’s just no history of this company ever being able to do something like this in the past.’”
During a pre-grand opening event on Sept. 4, Joe Canfield, Yellow Banana’s CEO, said “there’s only one side of the story out there,” adding that a host of unforeseen challenges were responsible for the minority-owned company’s setbacks.
“There was a long list of things, not just one particular thing, but probably the longest challenge we had was the refrigeration equipment that got delayed due to COVID-19,” Canfield said. “When the pandemic hit, lead times more than doubled for refrigeration, going from 13 to 15 weeks to 26 to 30 weeks. We couldn’t order that equipment until we closed the deal in March 2023.”
Canfield said the company also ran into permitting issues and a few stores experienced “pretty significant vandalism and theft.”
“You try to explain that and it sounds like a bunch of excuses,” he said. “Nobody cares and I don’t blame people for not caring. At the end of the day, if I live in West Garfield Park or far South, wherever I live, I need a grocery store. I dont care what your problems are, I need to feed my family. So I understand why people are impatient and I dont think theyre’ wrong for being impatient.”
But to focus almost exclusively on the missteps of Yellow Banana risks ignoring the forest for the trees. Pan out and you’ll find that the challenges Yellow Banana experienced aren’t unique to one company; they’re virtually guaranteed obstacles for any business looking to take a chance opening a full-service grocery store in low-income Black neighborhoods. And when that entity is not a corporation, particularly if that entity is Blackowned, the obstacles can seem nearly insurmountable.
“Access to all foods is a more important factor for obesity than access to specific relatively nutritious foods,” Fernandez writes. “Accordingly, the term ‘food swamp’ was coined to highlight the prevalence of energy-dense snacks and fast foods among few healthy alternatives disproportionately present in low-income areas. Food swamps have become a separate and stronger predictor of obesity rates than food deserts.”
On the Westside, full-service grocery stores and farmers’ markets have to compete not only with corner stores and dollar stores selling an abundance of cheap processed food but also with fast food restaurants, which studies show are more prevalent in poor and ethnic communities than in relatively affluent and white communities.
“discriminatory policies and practices embedded deeply in the food system and broader US society; for example, in local zoning policies that limit urban farming, in lasting economic and social impacts of historic redlining by mortgage and insurance companies, or in federal subsidy and loan programs that mediate access to farm capital.”
Redlining began in the 1930s, when “lending institutions shaded predominantly Black and Brown neighborhoods in red on area maps, indicating areas less desirable for lending. Redlined neighborhoods were also denied favorable home loans and insurance. Banks refused to extend mortgages to these neighborhoods, preventing Black and Brown residents from building generational wealth through property ownership and making these neighborhoods unattractive for white homebuyers.”
According to researchers at the University of Connecticut, “supermarket redlining” is the tendency for major chain supermarkets to avoid locating their stores in inner cities or low-income neighborhoods or relocating existing stores to the suburbs.
“As with more familiar forms of banking and residential redlining, the driving force behind supermarket redlining is also an abstraction based on perceived ‘urban obstacles’,” such as “lower demand, higher costs of urban land, labor, and utilities, lower profit margins from perishable food items, or risk of thefts in inner cities.”
The Brookings Institution, a Washington D.C.-based public policy think tank, published a study last year indicating that supermarket perceptions of Black communities are not always valid.
“Businesses and the broader real estate and financing sectors are not investing even in prospering Black-majority neighborhoods, which devalues these communities and hinders opportunities for growth,” the study argues.
THE BIGGER PICTURE — FOOD APARTHEID
Terminology is one reason we may be missing the deeper causes of food insecurity in urban communities of color.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) defines food deserts as “low-income census tracts with a substantial number or share of residents with low levels of access to retail outlets selling healthy and affordable foods.”
The term, however, only captures part of the reality of food availability and food security, and particularly their relation to health outcomes, in communities like West Garfield Park. For one, the Westside has plenty of food, just not the food that’s good for you.
Sofia Fernandez, a DePaul University College of Law graduate, wrote a paper published in May in the DePaul Journal of Health Care Law arguing that most attempts at increasing access to healthy foods “have not improved diet quality or obesity measures,” possibly due to the “persistent availability of unhealthy foods.”
But using the terms “food desert” and “food swamp” to describe communities on the Westside can be problematic, farmer and activist Karen Washington told the Guardian newspaper in 2018.
“Who in my actual neighborhood has deemed that we live in a food desert? Number one, people will tell you that they do have food. Number two, people in the hood have never used that term,” Washington said. “It’s an outsider term. ‘Desert’ also makes us think of an empty, absolutely desolate place. But when we’re talking about these places, there is so much life and vibrancy and potential. Using that word runs the risk of preventing us from seeing all of those things.”
The terms “food desert” and “food swamp” also make the social conditions in racially segregated and disinvested communities appear to be more like acts of nature rather than the result of deliberate policymaking decisions made by people.
“When we say ‘food apartheid,’ the real conversation can begin,” Washington said. “‘Food apartheid’ looks at the whole food system, along with race, geography, faith, and economics. You say ‘food apartheid’ and you get to the root cause of some of the problems around the food system.”
According to the Stray Dog Institute, an organization whose purpose is to cultivate “dignity, justice, and sustainability in the food system,” its website says, food apartheid is the result of
THE PROBLEMS FACING SMALL OPERATORS
Earlier this month, Rita Clayton walked out of Moses Butcher Shop, 5057 W. Division St. in Austin, carrying a few bags of groceries.
“I just spent $80 on little bitty stuff,” Clayton said frustratedly. “I’m going to stop this s— because stuff is getting too high.”
The store’s owner, who declined to give his name, sounded just as frustrated as Clayton.
“It’s rough right now—big time,” he said. “Especially with prices on stuff like eggs. I used to sell eggs for $0.99, but now, a dozen medium eggs cost me $3. I sell them for $3.29. It’s rough. You got the minimum wage in Chicago and the taxes — all that. It’s really hard to keep up. It’s not easy.”
If premium grocery store chains like Whole Foods and Trader Joe’s can’t figure out how to open or remain open in places like Austin, West Garfield Park, and North Lawndale, imagine the problems besetting smaller independent grocers—let alone Black grocers.
The federal government’s Healthy Food Financing Initiative provides financial and technical assistance to food retailers in underserved areas. ProPublica reported in August that since
See GROCERY STORES on page 8
Yellow Banana co-founders Michael Nance and Ademola Adewale-Sadik inside the Save A Lot store in West Garfield Park during the store's grand opening on Sept. 5. | MICHAEL ROMAIN
GROCERY STORES
Continued from page 7
2018, Illinois has used funding for the program to subsidize six grocery stores in underserved communities. “Four of them have closed,” the publication explained.
The ProPublica report added that an emerging body of academic research suggests “that the conventional wisdom about how to overcome food deserts—building stores in underserved areas—overlooks the fact that prices matter as much as proximity. For all the benefits the opening of a store can bring to a community, if it can’t compete on pricing, it will struggle to survive.”
Independent grocery stores “can’t compete on pricing because they must pay more than national chains to stock their shelves,” ProPublica reported. “Although the price differences for shoppers may be only nominal for most individual items, they can add up on a full cart.”
The proprietor of Moses Butcher Shop, who said his family has owned and operated the store since 1974, said he survives partly because he also owns a meat company from which his store purchases directly, allowing him to sell meat at relatively competitive prices.
Independent grocery store owners who don’t have that option are at the mercy of suppliers. Before the 1980s, ProPublica points out, the federal government “rigorously monitored mergers and enforced the Robinson-Patman Act, a 1930s-era law intended to prevent suppliers from offering better pricing to big retailers than to independent stores.”
Since Ronald Reagan ushered in an era of lax federal regulation 40 years ago, regulators have not been inclined to enforce the Robinson-Patman Act. With less federal monitoring, big corporations have captured more and more of the retail food industry.
of new farm tractors and combines. Four conglomerates share power over the export of corn, wheat, and soybeans, as well as the processing of these crops into food and feed ingredients — with one of them often exercising monopolistic control over particular regional export markets and particular industries like flour and corn milling.
“Five companies hold similar sway over the nation’s meat and poultry industries, with one or two usually dominating the procurement and slaughter of cattle, hogs, and chickens in particular regions of the country. Comparable concentrations of market power pervade the fruit and vegetable processing industries and extend to egg production, milk processing, and grocery retailing. Grocery sales — historically the domain of countless local and regional firms — are now primarily in the hands of just four national retailers.”
market study which will determine unmet supply and demand in an area. You will know whether your potential area can support your type of store. The numbers don’t lie so please listen to them. I made this mistake trying to force a healthier food offering in a neighborhood that just didn’t want it.”
Wright said the best way to get a market study of an area is to pay a potential distributor for the data, but it can cost anywhere between $5,000 and $20,000. And that’s just the start. Even if an inner city area is marketable, potential operators still need to find a suitable building.
“You can put anything in a grocery store building, but you cannot put a grocery store in any building,” Wright explained. “Most of the buildings ideal for grocery store operation in Urban America are owned and controlled by the Arab or Chaldean communities.”
A 2023 USDA report showed that four grocery chains receive a third of U.S. food sales and a report released this month by Farm Action, an organization that fights against corporate monopolies, shows that the problem of corporate consolidation permeates the U.S. food system.
“Across the agricultural supply chain, a corporate oligarchy has arrogated for itself the power to decide who gets to farm and how they farm, what food gets produced and sold in this country, and how much we all have to pay for it.”
According to Farm Action, “four multinationals now dominate the development and production of seeds and pesticides. Single firms monopolize each of the domestic markets for nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium fertilizers. One corporation wields monopoly power over the manufacture, distribution, and repair
Grocery is a notoriously unforgiving business with high operating costs and profit margins of just 1.6% on average in 2013, according to the Food Industry Association. Facing this stark reality, it’s no surprise that small independent grocers offer what they think their local customers will buy and what will bring in revenue—not necessarily what’s good for people’s health.
Raphael Wright, a Detriot resident who recently opened a full-service grocery store on the city’s east side, wrote in a Medium article published in 2020 that he learned that lesson the hard way.
“An area with plenty of grocery stores or an area without the ideal population density are more likely places you would want to avoid,” Wright explained. “The best way to determine whether you’re in a favorable area or not is to perform a site-specific
Wright added that most city governments neglect to properly inspect grocery and convenience stores to make sure they’re compliant with food and building safety laws, making it even more difficult for aspiring grocers to open in urban communities.
“Most of the stores in our hoods would fail inspections which means you will definitely fail in pre-inspections,” he wrote.
If an aspiring grocer secures a building, they’ll be facing the high cost of renovating the facility.
“With the average square footage of a grocery store in Urban America being between 15,000-20,000 square feet, the aspiring grocer is looking to spend at least $650,000 just in building costs, that’s not including licensing, labor, inventory, marketing, etc.,” Wright explained. “ That’s just the building alone.”
Once the store is open, the grocer has to maintain consistent sales while facing down one threat to the store’s survival after another. ProPublica’s reporting on Rise Community Market, a grocery store that opened about a year ago in Cairo, Ill. with the help of state subsidies, is a case in point.
To attract more customers, the store opened an adjacent cafe that sold hot food items like pizza and chicken, but enough customers never materialized and the cafe closed in October, draining the store’s savings. On top of that, “the walk-in cooler that the store had purchased secondhand to save money broke, taking with it about $2,000 worth of meat, produce and dairy products it contained. Without the cooler, the store could keep only about 16 gallons of milk on its shelves — a major issue since milk is a key product that brings people into grocery stores.”
ProPublica reported that the store’s sales were well below the $70,000 a month it takes to break even, with Rise averaging less than half that in the first six months of this year.
The owners of Moses Butcher Shop in Austin tend to the store's exterior. Moses is one of the many corner grocery stores that many Austin residents rely on to get food. Independent stores like Moses are often at the mercy of suppliers that charge them more for food than big retailers like Walmart. | MICHAEL ROMAIN
“When you add up the money spent by Cairo citizens everywhere they shop, they’re spending an estimated $530,000 monthly on groceries, based on sales data for recent years,” ProPublica reported. “(This estimate is derived from overall sales data in a three-county region, adjusted for Cairo.) That means that they are spending only about 5% at Rise, when they’d need to spend at least 13%.”
‘WE’RE ON THE HOOK’
Joe Canfield, Yellow Banana’s CEO, hopes his company’s store can defy the odds and he’s banking on community collaboration to do it.
“We’re trying to listen to people and do what people ask us to do,” he said. “That’s the only way we’ll be successful.”
Canfield said remodeling and opening the six Save A Lot stores on the Southside and Westside cost $26.5 million paid for with the city’s $13.5 million grant, $7 million in New Market Tax Credits, and around $11 million in debt. He said it cost around $5.5 million to renovate each store.
“We’re on the hook for a lot of stuff,” he said. “Me and my partners need this to work.”
Canfield said Yellow Banana hired a West Garfield Park resident as the store manager and held a vendor fair at The Hatchery Chicago, 135 N. Kedzie, for anyone seeking to sell their items in the store.
Yellow Banana also partnered with Experimental Station, a South Side organization that promotes access to healthy food, to bring the Link Match program into the store on the day it opened.
“The Link Match program allows us to match dollar for dollar on anything someone spends,” said Matthew L. Ruffi, the program manager for Link Up Illinois, which administers the Link Match program.
“When shoppers spend something with their Link card, they get a voucher and they can spend it just like cash on fruits and vegetables,” Ruffi said. “They can earn a maximum of $5 per day. We were impressed. A lot of stores aren’t prepared to accept SNAP [Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program] benefits right when they open and certainly don’t have this program. This helps people double their spending power, helps them get fresh fruits and vegetables on the plate, and helps the store turnover the fruits and vegetables.”
Ald. Jason Ervin (28th), whose ward includes the Save A Lot, said he met with Canfield and other community leaders every Thursday morning for two years before the store’s grand opening on Sept. 5.
“Our goal right now is maintaining the store and making sure it stays up to standard and the community respects and utilizes it,” Ervin said on Sept. 5. “I wanted my wife [Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin] to come because she does all the shopping in the house.”
Michael Nance, an attorney and one of Yellow Banana’s co-founders, said he and his investment partners have West Garfield Park’s best interests at heart.
“We see ourselves in these community members,” he said. “We grew up in a community like this one. Part of our mission is to bring healthy food to these commiunities. I grew up in Cleveland off St. Clair Avenue [of Bone Thugs-n-Harmony fame]. We’re going to do our part to make sure the store stays clean and stocked but we have to also make sure people treat the store respectively. We hope by treating them well, they’ll treat us well.”
‘WE’RE JUST A GROCERY STORE’
Liz Abunaw, the founder and CEO of Forty Acres Fresh Market, is on the verge of opening a roughly 10,000-square-foot full-service grocery store at 5713 W. Chicago Ave. in Austin that will share space in a formerly vacant building with a PNC Bank branch.
Abunaw said one of the biggest challenges for grocers aspiring to open locations in communities like the Westside is the assumption that they’re doing charity work and not business. She said Forty Acres, a mobile grocer that delivers across the Chicago area, is often mistaken for a nonprofit even though one of her largest customer bases is affluent Oak Park.
“There has to be an angle that doesn’t paint us as ‘the food desert grocery store’,” Abunaw said, referencing the way the store has been depicted in past news coverage. “We’re just a grocery store!”
Abunaw said the state’s subsidy programs for independent grocery operators in underserved areas are promising, but, as with the media narrative, the way the government sees Blackowned businesses like hers serving Black communities needs to change.
“If people make it seem like our store is only for those who can’t afford food, they’re going to turn people away,” Abunaw said. “This has to be about making the playing field even so we can compete and not solely about solving the problem of food deserts and food insecurity.”
That point is particularly salient given Abunaw’s mission to not just do business in Austin but to attract people who live outside of Austin to her store. According to market data, residents who live near the Chicago Avenue corridor spend nearly $9 million buying groceries outside of their retail area.
Abunaw said in addition to treating small businesses seeking to open on the Westside like nonprofits, government programs offering financial and technical assistance aren’t always sensitive to the structural inequities that those small businesses are up against.
Credit lines and bank loans are often hard to come by, it can take months or even years for small businesses to see the money from state grants they’ve secured, and the administrative burden of applying for those grants and being in compliance once the money is received is often high.
“What gets me is this assumption that they’re giving money to entities that have all these staff and decision-makers,” Abunaw said. “We don’t have a CFO.”
The inequities carry over to doing business with large institutional customers like hospitals and schools that can take months to pay for goods and services. Unlike large companies, small businesses can’t always wait that long to get paid.
“You can give us the business, but if your payment terms say I can’t get paid for 60 days, then you’re unequal! We need our money sooner. You have a system setup that applies to everybody equally but causes more harm to us. We’re not [the large corporation] that has your cafeteria contract. They have cash flow and huge lines of credit. We don’t have that. I am paying wages, inventory, and rent for two months before you pay me for something I did two months ago.
“Banks won’t give you a line of credit immediately,” Abunaw added. “You have to have a certain amount of money just to bank with them and some banks will charge you if you don’t have a minimum amount of money in your account. Small businesses are using their cash. If we have to wait to get paid, that, in and of itself, is a barrier that affects Black businesses more than anybody else and that is what people mean they talk about institutional racism.”
If, as Fernandez writes, “the persistent disinvestment of businesses” in previously redlined areas like the Westside creates “the building blocks of food deserts and swamps,” then rectifying some of the structural obstacles for businessowners like Abunaw may be an important key to turning food deserts and swamps into oases.
“If Forty Acres is successful as a brick-and-mortar grocery store, it won’t be because I’m so amazing that I figured out ways around systemic barriers,” Abunaw said. “It would be because I got lucky in some ways that are not replicable for others across the board. I’m coming in with an MBA from the best business school in the world [the University of Chicago]. I had the ability to forego salary for almost two years because I worked at Microsoft and saved. I had more privilege than your average Westside small business owner but I have less privilege than my white peers with comparable backgrounds.”
Keith Jackson, a Forty Acres Fresh Market employee, works during the Austin Town Hall City Market that Forty Acres hosts every Thursday at Austin Town Hall Park in Austin. Jackson said since working for Forty Acres, he's become more interested in healthy foods. | MICHAEL ROMAIN
IN PHOTOS
The Austin P.O.W.E.R. 5K
PHOTOS BY MICHAEL ROMAIN
Jamay Nellum-Fane, Rev. Ira Acree, and his grandson, Marcus Acree, Jr., show off their medals after completing the Austin P.O.W.E.R. 5K on Sept. 21.
Mayor Brandon Johnson meets a group of community leaders and elected officials at the start of the walk run. Those gathered include state Rep. Camille Lilly, Illinois Senate President Don Harmon, Ald. Chris Taliaferro, businessman Malcolm Crawford, the event's founder, and Rev. Ira Acree.
A runner closes in on the finish line during the walk and run on Sept. 21.
Mayor Johnson jogging at the start of the Austin P.O.W.E.R. 5K in Austin on Sept. 21.
A volunteer cheers on a runner making his way down Chicago Avenue during the annual Austin P.O.W.E.R. 5K community walk and run on Sept. 21.
"One of the things I appreciate so much about Soul City is we're now family invested into our own community and completing our own projects and bringing wealth to our neighborhood," Reed said.
PHOTOS BY MICHAEL ROMAIN
At Saturday's event, Mayor Johnson joined community leaders like Westside Health Authority CEO MOrris Reed in paying homage to the late Cook County Commissioner Dennis Deer and the late Grammy-nominated Chicago gospel singer Dante Hall.
Marshawn Feltus, the owner of ACT Yoga, Austin's only yoga studio, and the event's coordinator, leads participants in a light stretching session before the Austin P.O.W.E.R. 5K starts.
Volunteers and supporters cheer on race participants as they make their way toward the finish line.
Publicly Funded Stadiums Make No Cents for Taxpayers
When voters in the 29th Ward go to the polls on Nov. 5, they’ll find the following non-binding referendum question on their ballots: “Shall the people of Chicago provide any taxpayer subsidy to the Chicago Bears to build a new stadium?”
According to a 2023 survey of studies analyzing stadium funding from 1909 to 2019, the historical record demonstrates that almost invariably “there are little to no tangible economic benefits from stadiums.” This the main argument of “The Economics of Stadium Subsidies: A Policy Retrospective,” by John Charles Bradbury, Dennis Coates, and Brad R. Humphreys.
My synopsis here closely tracks and quotes liberally from their exhaustvely researched conclusions. The authors argue that the overwhelming research finding is that public subsidies “tend to exceed any meager economic benefits [stadiums] may provide.” This is not controversial; there’s near-universal agreement among economists that stadium subsidies are poor public investments that worsen economic inequity.
New development strategies (stadium districts, as in Milwaukee and Los Angeles) don’t change this. Also, non-general taxes, like hotel taxes, only create a “fiscal illusion”—the myth that residents don’t bear the main burden of these taxes. In fact, “the average public contribution to stadium construction has increased substantially over time.” This is because stadiums have gotten more elaborate and expensive. Official reports projecting stadium costs often “exclude related costs, like land, infrastructure, operations, municipal services, and forgone property taxes.” These increase actual public costs by 25% to 40%.
Stadium lifespans are getting shorter (averaging 30 years) and it’s increasingly “common for owners to replace stadiums before their functional lives are exhausted.” This is incentivized by the honeymoon effect—the initial high usage caused by the new stadiums’ novelty. Another stadium construction wave is expected to peak in 2030.
The main argument for the claim that new stadiums have broader economic benefits is that they expand the local economy by attracting new business development to the surrounding area. But this argument confuses the concentrated spending that’s observed at sporting events with new spending.
Using dedicated taxes like hotel taxes hides rather than changes the fact that “most of the revenue collected to support stadiums will come from local residents and businesses.” In other words, special taxes are a shell game, intended to convince the public into thinking that costs are being exported to
PERSPECTIVES [ [
non-residents (visiting sports fans), rather than to residents. So why do politicians and other policymakers often support publicly funded stadiums despite the lack of evidence showing stadiums benefit the public?
Does market power explain it? Most sports teams are monopolies. So threats to relocate teams don’t explain public subsidies—the markets are too good to leave, and many publics say no when given a vote (including even Kansas City residents to their recent Super Bowl champion Chiefs). Threats often backfire, pissing off the public. Anyway, many teams get public subsidies without threats.
Here’s what the research instead reveals. First, team owners rarely show their faces in pushing new stadiums—even though they’re the main beneficiaries. Instead, stadium campaigns are pushed by local growth coalitions representing an alliance of big corporations, elected officials, and local mainstream media.
This informal growth alliance believes in a growth model with parameters that favor “large, visible projects that will attract new corporations to the city and real estate policies that increase exchange value.” They also see sports as key to their personal financial interests—helping to promote the city as a “desirable place to live and work for highly sought-after executives, whom they hope to recruit and retain.” They also get personal perks like sky boxes.
The local growth coalition establishes itself as an “informal community institution” whose approval comes to be valued by elected officials. When this happens, politicians are afraid to not go along because they might need the backing of this business constituency for other matters.
The local growth coalition pretends to “promote a neutral pro-community agenda.” Rather than out-lobby the opposition, it tries to shut the opposition out. The coalition members operate religiously with shared “common core beliefs” that resist
the evidence that stadium subsidies are bad policy. In the face of challenges based on evidence, they practice willful ignorance, and double down on advocacy.
Local growth coalitions dominate to the point where real policy debates can’t occur: “Municipalities are not neutral referees.” Blind support for stadiums is the “default” position. City officials are cheerleaders. Opponents must expect “to fight city hall.”
To sway opinion, growth coalitions often commission economic impact reports, sometimes by universities. Because taxpayers favor stadiums if they believe they catalyze development, these reports commonly claim this impact. But these reports’ assumptions and methodologies are deeply flawed. They obscure economists’ near-consensus that stadiums aren’t good public investments. To dodge debate and win approval, civic leaders often fabricate an artificially urgent timeline.
Local media often become the primary institutional booster that shapes public perception. Uncritical media fail the public by so-called “just the facts” reporting that leaves out the policy implications and contexts, uncritically repeats claims by commissioned advocacy reports, and is not based on familiarity with stadium economics. This reporting also touts a false both sidesism to obscure economists’ near-consensus that stadiums are fiscal losers for the public and treats independent studies and advocate-commissioned reports as equivalent. This reporting also highlights cheerleading editors that deeply align with local growth coalitions and often ridicule the opposition.
The evidence clearly shows what the public often suspects: Despite claims about public benefits, the real winners when it comes to stadium subsidies aren’t regular Westsiders but billionaire team owners looking for free government handouts.
— Dan Giloth, Organizer, Black Workers Matter-Chicago West Side
Soldier Field, the home of the Chicago Bears (at least for now). The team is currently looking for a new home and exploring ways to pay for it. | CREATIVE COMMONS
PERSPECTIVES [ [
The Aspire Center: Remaking an Old School
For over twenty-five years of my life, I’ve taken many trips down Madison and Central avenues. Those trips were with my stepdad, my mom, and myself at the wheel.
Robert Emmet Elementary was functioning for the many years of my life, and it was an impactful institution to Austin since its inception in 1920.
There were lives there, and there were movements, and I was a neighbor. I remember many moments of driving nearby, and the children were on the school’s playground, or they were entering or leaving the building. On some occasions, I would watch the children play as they ran around gleefully and inno-
cently. I recall having a sense of joy in watching them be so free, and I had recollections of my childhood of being so happy.
All those accounts would disappear after the school ended. I still drove down Madison and Central, but sadly, I had to look at a dormant, empty building with no activity. It left a void, and I questioned how the children and their parents were moving forward.
Since closing in 2013, the building remained quiet and dilapidated. Each time I drove by, I would wonder about its future since it is a massive structure. When Westside Health Authority’s CEO Morris Reed was interviewed in 2023 by Crain’s Chicago Business, he said, “It became a visible eyesore” when describing Rob-
How One Summer Chicago and Westside Health Authority Develop Youth
This article exemplifies the importance of the One Summer Chicago program with Westside Health Authority (WHA).
By providing positive outcomes and engaging in summer employment initiatives, WHA’s partnership with One Summer Chicago gives adolescents a greater chance to improve their employment opportunities in the future.
At One Summer Chicago, students got more than paychecks. They were given a foundation for work-related experiences. According to the National Research Center for Career and Technical Education, giving students incentives to explore various career paths is an effective way to cultivate a strong work ethic that leads to effective communication skills.
In addition to providing employment opportunities for students, the One Summer Chicago program also provides leadership opportunities for aspiring young adults. Youth leaders involved in One Summer Chicago learned essential career-building skills at WHA.
Andre, one of the youth leaders, said the program “opened up doors for [youth] to learn more about careers.” Feeling that One Summer Chicago helped young people like Andre broaden their perspectives in seeking valuable employment opportunities. Learning alongside his fellow peers, a teenager named Kristopher explained that the program prompted him to pursue a career as a barber and attend cosmetology school.
The initiatives offered by WHA and One Summer Chicago provided young people with pivotal pathways to success.
“The (program is) opening up doors for them to learn more
about the careers,” Andrew said.
While the young individuals participating in this program were introduced to career success at an early age, the program also prepared them to become innovators in their community and future generations.
According to the National Academies of Science, studies indicate that young adults who do not participate in summer programs are more prone to facing obstacles in transitioning to adulthood, including challenges in communication and a poor work ethic.
The teenagers enrolled in One Summer Chicago demonstrated growth within a five-week period.
“We have to wake up early and be on time to work and participate in the work they are giving us,” said Kaleigh, a One Summer Chicago youth participant.
These are the experiences that the program administrators aim for teenagers to prepare for when they come of age for a real life work experience.
Morris Reed, WHA’s CEO, hopes young people can gain an understanding of why securing employment once they’re old enough, working under supervision, and managing their finances effectively are important.
Andre, the youth leader, shared the improved communication skills of one One Summer Chicago student named George. “George was shy in the beginning and didn’t want to participate in activities, but over the course of five weeks, he got out of his shell and participated,” Andre said.
The collaboration between One Summer Chicago and WHA
ert Emmett. I held the same sentiment during the years of its closure.
Then hope manifested and the school was purchased and renovations have started. What once was an uncertain reality became a newer version of learning and growing. A new feeling of excitement saturates me. I’m eager to see the finished idea and to witness the changes.
I’m even more curious about the many generations of pupils and their families who were once part of the school. How will they adapt to this new center? Will they fully embrace the Aspire Center, or will they hold on tightly to memories of the school it once was?
— Anoushah Antilles, Austin writer
helps cultivate passion among young individuals and prepare them for future employment experiences. The program introduces various career paths and encourages youth to establish goals for self-improvement.
As students, we were fortunate to embark on this journey with One Summer Chicago and WHA. We appreciate the investment in our future, we will apply the skills this school year, and look forward to being involved and engaged next summer.
— Morgan Reed and Willow Sanders
Morgan Reed, 14, attends Walter Payton College Prep interested in pursuing a career in dermatology and entrepreneurship.
Willow Sanders, 14, attends Lindblom Math and Science Academy and wants to be a pediatrician and an entrepreneur.
Willow Sanders and Morgan Reed. | PROVIDED
A construction crew at work on the Aspire Center in September. | KENN COOK JR.
IN PHOTOS
Danny K. Davis' Back to School Parade
Members of the Chicago Youth Dance Coalition strike a pose during Congressman Danny K. Davis' Back to School Picnic and Parade on Aug. 31.
Cora Bishop, 65, and Zella Harvey, 79, watch the parade from the sidewalk. The Mississippi natives said the Aug. 31 parade is reminiscent of the parades they saw in the South. "Getting up and waiting for the parade is a tradition for us," Bishop said. "Parades were big for us in the South, especially homecoming parades. The whole little town would close down.".
PHOTOS BY MICHAEL ROMAIN
Congressman Danny K. Davis on a float traveling west on Jackson Boulevard on Aug. 31.
Charles Allen, 85, sits on his porch on Central Avenue as the parade participants pass by. "Commandos!" the proud Marshall High School alum shouted.
Aubrey Turay, 24, waits to see the parade with her 2-yearold daughter, Lyric Williams. "She just turned 2 yesterday," Turay said.
Deborah Williams, the community outreach and engagement manager at Habilitative Systems, waves from a float on Aug. 31.
Bernard Clay, the executive director of Introspect Youth Services, stands with the young participants of his program during a short break from grilling meat at the Technology in the Park Health Fair in Columbus Park that followed Davis' parade. "They're all members of Michele Clark's basketball team," Clay said.
Members of the Kaotic Drumline have some fun while marching down Central Avenue in Austin during the parade on Aug. 31.
The Westside Health Authority's Corridor Ambassadors setup a resource tent in the shadow of the Aspire Center on Madison and Central during the Aug. 31 parade.
Members of the Westside Health Authority's Good Neighbor Campaign represented in the Aug. 31 parade. | COURTESY JOSEPH GREEN
