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Every summer since 1980, Austin native Tyrone Wideman has celebrated his summer birthday with his family at the Taste of Chicago. “I took my son in a stroller,” Wideman said about attending the very first Taste of Chicago with his then-1-year-old baby.
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Sherida McCoy still can't believe her 19-year-old son, Kendall Jordan, is working as a camp counselor in northern Wisconsin this summer. The Illinois State University sophomore is experiencing a lot of firsts – including his first time going camping.
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The Westside Branch NAACP wants the proposed Emmet School health care campus put on hold until more community input is received about the project. The organization has requested more details and clarity about the plan to build an all-purpose health care center at the closed Emmet School building at 5500 W. Madison.
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West Side residents turned out for the first of three meetings to share their thoughts on how to spend some of the approximately $1.3 million “menu money” slated to be spent in the next year in the 29th Ward. “Austin is not a community where they are doing a lot of developments,” said Austin retiree Maria Sorrell, who suggested a community garden at the corner of Waller and Race avenues.
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The proposal to convert the shuttered Emmet Elementary School into a community health care campus is running into strong opposition from some Austin residents. At a community meeting last week, residents blasted the proposed project and Chicago Public Schools' bid process involving the property at 5500 W. Madison St.
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More than 30 West Side residents, police officers and elected officials celebrated the community garden at the intersection of Chicago and Mayfield earlier this week. The Ed Bailey-Leola Spann community garden honors the two now-deceased West Siders for their lifelong activism and dedication to reducing crime in Austin, said Cook County State’s Attorney Kimberly Foxx.
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Cook County Commissioner Richard Boykin addressed the ever-present gun violence in Austin and other predominantly African-American communities during a town hall meeting last weekend, calling on West Side parents to support each other in raising their children. “There is a crisis with respect to African American, and there is a crisis with respect to parenting,” Boykin told about 20 people who attended the meeting.
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West Side musicians, activists and residents gathered last week to discuss how to promote blues tourism in Austin, North Lawndale and Garfield Park. The “West Side has got a worldwide reputation for blues,” Bonni McKeown, a longtime advocate and educator for the homegrown music, told about 20 people at Gone Again Travel &Tours last Wednesday to brainstorm ideas on how the West Side can capitalize on its music heritage to drive the economy and create jobs.
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The effort to enroll at least 100 freshmen at Frederick Douglass Academy High School for the upcoming school year is underway, says the school's principal. There are no plans to close the building, but the school is working hard to meet Chicago Public Schools' enrollment request - and then some, Principal Vanessa Dereef said.
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Austin teen Jaquan Weaver didn't call himself a chess player six weeks ago. But now, the 15-year-old high school student can identify all the chess pieces and know how to move each one on the board.
