AustinTalks (http://austintalks.org/category/news/page/38/)
The Austin Garden Collective will be hosting community volunteer days at various gardens throughout Austin this summer. There will be some changes – like social distancing and mask wearing – due to the coronavirus.
During Thursday’s event, organized by Action Now, leaders from community groups spoke about the need to empower black neighborhoods, heal divisions and affect lasting change. Deborah Harris, executive director of Action Now, said while they needed to “serve people right then and there,” the bigger mission is to start “rebuilding unity in the black community, rebuilding power in the black community, rebuilding resources of the black community.”
Each graduating senior will receive a $1,000 scholarship. This is the 46th year the Austin church has awarded scholarships to college-bound students from the West Side.
Sunday’s peaceful demonstration was one of many held throughout Chicago since police in Minneapolis killed George Floyd.
At least 1,500 people participated in a peaceful protest Thursday evening from Oak Park to Austin. It was organized by state Rep. La Shawn K. Ford.
Businesses along Austin’s major thoroughfares – including North Avenue, Chicago Avenue and Madison Street – were hit by looters after peaceful protests over the police killing of George Floyd in Minnesota.
CPS will resume meal distribution Tuesday at more than 300 school sites – including about a dozen in Austin – after a temporary one-day suspension. No grab-and-go meal sites were open on Monday due to transportation and safety challenges that were anticipate for staff that hand out the meals. CTA buses and trains were shut down Sunday night and didn’t resume operating until Monday because of weekend looting across the city that followed peaceful protests over the police killing in Minnesota of George Floyd.
Twenty-nine Austin community groups will receive more than $100,000 in grants from the Chicago Fund for Safe and Peaceful Communities program. The Austin organizations are among 164 grops throughout the West and South sides selected to receive a total of $1 million in grants.
All but four Chicago Public Schools in Austin could see an increase in their budgets for the 20-21 school year. The Chicago Board of Education still needs to approved the school district’s $2.8 billion budget; that’s expected to happen sometime this summer.
West Side residents can be tested for the coronavirus at Loretto Hospital at 645 S. Central Ave.; PCC Community Wellness Center at 330 N. Lotus Ave.; and at the former Walgreens at 1606 N. Mobile Ave.