ELIANNE BAHENA | LITTLE VILLAGE | DIRECTOR OF POLICY & COMMUNITY OUTREACH | 22ND WARD, CHICAGO

Ella verdaderamente es la hija de La Villita.

Whether you prefer Spanish or English, Elianne Bahena truly is the daughter of Little Village. 

Ely, as she’s known to her friends, was born in California and spent her early years in Guerrero, Mexico, on the country’s Pacific coast southwest of Mexico City, but she grew up in Little Village.

“It’s the only home I’ve ever known,” Ely said. “Growing up on that block, specifically where I grew up at 23rd and St. Louis, there was a huge community there.”

La Villita, as Little Village is known locally, is one of those special places that serves as a pocket of cultural confluence for its residents, with many sharing common life experiences as Mexican-Americans and mixed-status families navigating the United States immigration system. 

“Growing up in those areas, you build communities,” Ely said. “I knew all my neighbors. We all went to the same church. All the kids went to the same schools. My mom would walk my neighbor home. We would always be in a group.”

While being raised by her village provided the opportunity to embrace her Mexican heritage, it was her own parents, whose entrepreneurial spirit and selfless generosity inspired Ely to invest herself back into the community. 

“Haz todo del corazón porque cuando es del corazón nunca de duele.” Ely recalled one of her mother’s sayings. Do everything from your heart, so when you do it, it never hurts.

She went on to explain the saying’s meaning to her. “Any kindness that you give, you always have to do it from the heart. So you can’t be mad if someone doesn’t say thank you because you did it selflessly.”

Her mother’s perspective is one not only admirable for its altruistic nature, but also for the personification of the grace and patience it takes for a village to raise its many children, despite the personal endeavor required to make a life in a foreign land.  

“My parents came here from nothing,” Ely said. “I understand the privilege of being born here and having something. I’m so incredibly proud of my parents.”

About 12 years ago, Ely’s parents started their own restaurant, Sinfonia Del Mar, in Cicero, Ill., featuring food from their home state of Guerrero. It’s one of many entrepreneurial ventures her parents have taken on, but it was one of her mother’s first jobs in a book binding factory and the free access to the factory’s defective books that stoked Ely’s love of reading - a love that found its way into her daily work. 

Advocating on behalf of others isn’t for the faint of heart. It’s a demanding, consuming task that addresses some of the most intimate and emotionally complex issues people can face. 

“It’s not 9-5 work. It’s all of your life,” Ely said. “I’ve been an advocate for survivors of domestic violence and sexual assault, and an advocate for immigrant communities across Illinois, advocating for their rights in the workplace and anything that bars them from having certain rights.”

A hot-button political issue, immigration is particularly pertinent to the residents of Little Village, a community proud of its large Mexican heritage, yet apprehensive about an incoherent immigration process that is fraught with potential pitfalls. 

“This is my community. I grew up in La Villita. It’s immigrant and mixed-status families, just like mine,” Ely said. “I know what it’s like for your family to go through this immigration system.” 

She has worked many overnight shifts to help her neighbors file the appropriate paperwork, following countless hours explaining the process and potential outcomes.

“Because the laws aren’t there, if someone were to file right now to adjust your status, it could be 80 to 100 years before they ever see the results of a case. That’s a lifetime,” she says. “Some people don’t have a path to citizenship.”

It’s impossible to separate a person’s immigration status from Ely’s advocacy work, making the task all the more challenging. Whether she’s encountered a victim of domestic violence or sexual assault, a person’s status and the status of those around them impact their willingness to seek help from local law enforcement. 

“The intersection with immigration,” Ely began, “Means a lot of people don’t feel comfortable calling the police because police and ICE are always associated (in her community) even though we’re a welcoming city.”

Comfort and confidence in your environment are just two of a myriad of factors that people need to begin to engage with others and address their traumatic, personal experiences. 

Ely created such an environment with the Cuėntame Comadre Collective, a book club she co-founded just before restrictions related to COVID-19 began to impact in-person gatherings.

“It’s a space that we’ve created to navigate what it means to be a young Latina woman trying to break a lot of generational trauma and how we heal each other,” Ely said. “It’s helped us do a lot of healing through storytelling, through reading. Sometimes beautiful things can come out of horrible things.” 

There’s no manual to guide you along the way to restoring a community, to building trust between the residents and its institutions. 

“It only comes from understanding the needs of your neighborhood,” Ely said. 

In return for the work she’s put in, for the kindness she’s shown for her neighbors, for people who are overwhelmed by their situations, La Villita has put its trust in Ely. 

“It took a long time for me to get there, to recognize the power and influence I carry in my community.” 

She’s never expected anything in return for her efforts, she did it from the heart, after all. But the faith in her came anyway. 

Ely was elected to the 10th Police District Council during the 2023 municipal elections, the community’s literal vote of confidence in a woman who has given a voice to so many. Now she can speak for all of La Villita. 

“I want to make sure my community is at the forefront when we’re discussing policy issues. I want to make sure my community is at the forefront when we talk about how we want our area to be policed. I want to make sure people are held accountable in the way they work in our area and how they deal with all of these community issues. It’s such an important thing.”

Life sometimes takes you to places you never planned to be. For Ely, the community has seen her heart, her love for them and chose her to be their voice. It’s a gift she’s embracing. 

“At that moment where you are, you’re supposed to be in those places.”

The daughter of Little Village is coming into her own. 

Elianne Bahena is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

It takes somewhere around an hour to commute from a Bickerdike Redevelopment apartment in West Humboldt Park to Chinatown if you hop on the No. 65 bus at Grand and Karlov, then catch the Red Line to the Cermak-Chinatown stop. 

As you head east, toward some of the most recognizable Chicago landmarks adjacent to Lake Michigan, there’s a transformation. It didn’t take long for LaCreshia Birts to see the transformation for what it was: a different world. 

“My commute home from my high school, I got to see a lot of the city,” LaCreshia said. “I could see within my commute the difference in how the city was divided.”

There are people who won’t notice the coin laundry on the corner transform into four- and five-star hotels that charge a month’s rent for one night in a matter of blocks or how restaurants flip from fast-food to fine dining by crossing the river. LaCreshia noticed and began to ask questions and, more importantly, look for answers. 

“Growing up poor probably had the biggest impact on my worldview,” LaCreshia reflected. “Not only was I poor, but my whole family was poor. I didn’t know any rich people. I didn’t really even know any people who graduated from college. That wasn’t immediately accessible to me.” 

What was accessible to her was a first-hand look at the intersection of history, housing and the interplay of racial and economic realities. 

“I grew up in Bickerdike housing. It’s a low-income housing development,” LaCreshia said. “It was interesting. My immediate environment was very diverse.”

“My neighbors were a little bit of everybody,” She continued. “We had a Cuban next door, Puerto Ricans, there was a white lady from Alaska - her and her sons used to wear shorts in the winter time.”

It was a pocket of racial diversity sharing a common struggle with poverty and geographic isolation. 

LaCreshia’s early life experiences set the table for community-centered work. The reflective observation time during her commute to school and the lessons learned by watching her neighbors day-to-day grind created the motivated, determined community organizer that she has become. 

“Coming from lack made me want to fight for Black people to have everything that I feel like we deserve in this world,” LaCreshia said. “When you learn our history and how we were treated by our colonizers in this world and in this country, it just really made me want to fight for everything that our ancestors deserved.”

For more than a decade, LaCreshia has been intentional in her work for the Westside, advocating for police accountability, combating gentrification and gender violence, predating movements that have garnered widespread national attention such as Black Lives Matter. 

“Since 2014, I’ve been involved in community organizing around police accountability,” She noted. “For the past 10 years, I’ve been doing community organizing work in that vein.”

In 2019, her years of learning and evolving as a community organizer extended beyond volunteerism when she co-founded the Black Remembrance Project, a grass-roots Westside-based organization dedicated to uplifting Black American history. 

Her foray into leadership was about change and education. The Black Remembrance Project sought to have Juneteenth recognized as an official holiday by the City of Chicago. 

“Growing up, I didn’t know about Juneteenth,” LaCreshia said. “I actually found out about it from another community organization that was doing an event in North Lawndale.”

History books may have omitted the day or downplayed the significance in our country’s history, but LaCreshia, like many others who first learned of the day as adults lamented, “Why didn’t I know about this?” 

Her plan was to ensure Juneteenth would be overlooked no more. 

She reached out to every one of the Chicago aldermen and found the partner she needed in Maria Hadden, Alderperson for the 49th Ward.  

Hadden wrote the ordinance and worked with the Black Remembrance Project to push it forward in the Chicago City Council. In 2021, more than two years after she began the effort, the city of Chicago recognized the holiday in an official manner. 

“I didn’t think it would take two years. That was my naivete, not understanding the political scale, what was really happening.”

That effort led to subsequent recognition by the State of Illinois and, eventually, a national spotlight.

“When we had to fight for it, I wasn’t going to let them give us trinkets or placate us with a resolution,” LaCreshia said. “We wanted the full recognition.”

LaCreshia and the Black Remembrance Project’s work in Chicago paved the way for the writing of the Juneteenth National Independence Day Act, an effort that collected more than 1.6 million signatures in support of the measure that would be signed into law in June of 2021. 

“It’s a day to be prideful and to acknowledge all that we’ve been through, our struggles, and our triumphs as well,” she said. “I want everyone to feel proud to be Black. Even the people who aren’t Black, I want you to feel proud of Black people.”

LaCreshia has done some heavy lifting to drive forward initiatives she believes in, channeling a dogged determination into results not only for herself, but for her city. 

“It takes a community. You cannot do anything in this world alone,” she said. “I know some people are going to think I’m crazy when I mention it, but I’m fighting for Black American descendants of U.S. chattel slavery.”

“That’s my next fight,” she stated. “It’s a tough battle.”

It’s an uphill battle for LaCreshia, an acknowledged challenge for her and those who support the cause - a challenge they’ll take one step at a time in the name of progress. 

“There is a change coming.” 

LaCreshia Birts is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities. 

These days, it’s almost unavoidable to find yourself wrapped up in a lot of noise. Press an icon or two on your smartphone and you’re suddenly inundated with a veritable cornucopia of opinions about every topic under the sun. You’ll see a lot of political hot-button topics with a never-ending stream of people talking the talk about how to “fix” whatever ails us. 

Talking about an issue is one thing, taking action is another and it takes a special person to walk the walk. 

Jamil Brown is that person. 

Jamil has spent nearly 30 years in law enforcement, including the past 10 years with the Chicago Police Department. He currently serves as the community liaison for youth and faith in the 10th District that encompasses North Lawndale and Little Village, living and working where he leads. 

“I always want to help people,” Jamil said. “It’s just in me to uplift people, help people, bring people together and be a connector. Just get out and do it and don’t make any excuses about it.” 

He moved from his birthplace of East St. Louis to Elgin, Ill., as a 10-year-old, along with his mother and sister, to be closer to his aunt and grandmother and escape a turbulent existence in one of the most crime-ridden areas of the country. 

It took a leap of faith for his mother to uproot a young family on her own, without a definite landing spot, to seek out a better life for her children. Jamil and his family spent months in temporary living arrangements, sleeping in basements and bouncing from one location to another until finally settling into a place of their own. 

It was an unsettling adventure for a young boy, but one that led him to ultimately find a welcoming community in the church. 

“My faith is a huge component (of who he is). I grew up in faith. I grew up in the Methodist church,” Jamil commented, noting that it was his grandmother who would take them to church “nearly every day” once he arrived in the Windy City. 

It may not have been his preferred after-school activity as a youngster, but it shaped Jamil into the servant leader he has become. 

The upbeat, jovial Jamil oversees CPD community outreach programming for both young people and faith organizations across the 10th District - but it’s more than programming. It’s about building the necessary relationships between a community and those tasked with protecting and serving it. 

“We have so many things to offer. A lot of people don’t realize what the police department is and has been doing with the community.”

He didn’t want to be seen as an outsider, someone who came into a neighborhood, pillaged and left. And that’s why when he had the opportunity to live in the community he serves, he set roots in North Lawndale so he could walk the walk for his community.

“My job is all about community,” said Jamil. “When I had the opportunity to live here and work here, it just added that much more credibility.” 

“They see me in the grocery store, they see me wherever - we’re talking and chatting.” 

His mission goes beyond simply being a familiar face in the grocery store or on the street corner. Jamil is guiding a new generation of community leaders as part of his Youth District Advisory Council, an annual cohort of young people ages 16-24 who receive leadership training, networking opportunities, and work directly with CPD to provide recommendations and find solutions to the pressing needs of their areas. 

It’s a critical program in his eyes, one that directly impacts the current and future interactions between CPD and its constituents. 

“We are people. We have hearts, we have families,” Jamil said. 

His is a humanizing role, helping people on both sides of the street see the other with compassion, a message rooted in his faith. 

You may have heard the phrase, “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you,” or as Jamil says it, “Give someone some love. Give somebody some grace.”

Jamil Brown is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

We often think of leaders and leadership in bold terms: strong physical presence, charismatic, magnetic. We have an image of what we think a leader should look and sound like. Sometimes the best leaders among us aren’t the most vocal or the ones drawing attention to themselves. 

Patty Carrillo never considered herself a leader. In fact, it took nearly two decades for her to step out of the shadows and begin to lead a revitalization in her neighborhood. 

“I have been here for 20 years. But I was quiet,” she said. “I just went to work, came home and that was it.”

An immigrant from Michoacȧn, a mid-sized state with a stretch of coastline along the Pacific Ocean in southwest Mexico, Patty arrived in the United State at the age of 17, uncertain what her future would hold.  

She didn’t speak the language, she was in an unfamiliar place. 

“It was a big challenge. I came with dad to get a better life for our family,” recalled Patty. “I started working right away with my dad.” 

From the time she arrived in the States, she worked. She worked to support herself and her family. Patty quickly secured a job as a commercial property cleaner in downtown Chicago and used the daily interactions with her co-workers to teach herself to speak English. 

The Carrillos settled in West Humboldt Park, a neighborhood with a history of being a housing hub for various ethnic groups since the city’s inception. 

“We have great diversity in our blocks. We have people from Belize, Ecuador, Guatemala, Mexico,” Patty noted. “The majority are Mexican, but we’re all in the same position.”

There’s a quote attributed to novelist James Lane Allen that reads, “Adversity does not build character, it reveals it.”

A series of violent crimes, drug running and other “problems” in her neighborhood would pull back the curtain on Patty’s character. She had seen enough.

“I said to myself, ‘I have to do something.’”

Patty didn’t grab a megaphone and preach from a street corner. She didn’t place flyers in car windshields and she didn’t call the local news. Instead, she walked next door.

“I started knocking on doors. Getting to know my neighbors and asking them if they wanted to be a part of it (the Block Club) because we have to do something,” said Patty. “This is not right for our kids and our families.”

As it turned out, it was an easy sell. What it took was someone with the courage to stand up and unify the community around a common goal. It took a leader willing to lead.

Patty found an overwhelming majority of people on her block felt the same way. In fact, they had felt that way for a long time. 

“Some of our neighbors have been here for 30-plus years. They tried to do the same thing that I’m doing now, but it didn’t work. So they were 100 percent in support.”

The formation of the Block Club on the 1100 block of North Monticello quickly became a beacon in West Humboldt Park. They had common interests, the will to make changes, the numbers to make it happen, and an authentic, collaborative leader to guide them. 

Much like Patty did when she arrived in Chicago some 20 years ago, they put themselves to work right away. 

“Every two weeks we do a (neighborhood) cleanup and every time there are more and more people.” 

Tasks that other communities may take for granted - a street clear of trash, manicured lawns, graffiti-free buildings - began to transform the 1100 block into something new. 

But it hasn’t simply been polishing around the edges. That’s not enough. 

“Every month there is something to get the neighbors together in the community,” Patty commented about her efforts to build strong relationships amongst neighbors. 

So apparent was the change in 1100 N. Monticello that the surrounding areas took notice. They wanted to know the formula. The neighboring 1000 block of N. Monticello became a natural extension and soon the community organizing had expanded to five neighboring blocks.

“We got so strong as a community that other blocks started seeing the change in our blocks and wanted to do the same thing,” noted Patty. “So we said, OK.”

The transformation happening on N. Monticello and throughout West Humboldt Park is seen by some as nothing short of miraculous, a case study in urban revitalization. Patty sees it in much simpler terms: it’s about the people. 

“The most revolutionary thing you can do is to know your neighbors.”

Patty Carrillo is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

The scene has shifted a few times and the players have changed, but Alees Edwards has always found a way to bring it all together. 

There certainly have been some trying times for the West Humboldt Park resident, whose parents’ on-and-off-again relationship created a chaotic environment that landed Alees and her sister on their own at the age of 15. 

Born in Detroit, Alees spent the first decade or so of her life immersed in Black culture. 

“All Black school. All Black grocery store. All Black churches,” Alees said. “That’s what we grew up with.” 

You may be able to imagine the culture shock that 11-year-old Alees would experience as she and her sisters headed to Houston with her mother. 

“One of my very vivid, memorable moments is when I arrived at the airport.” she said. “When I got off of the flight and met my mom, there was an abundance of people who did not look like me.” 

The move itself was chaotic enough being precipitated by the final “off again” stage of her parents’ relationship, but a few years later there would be a full-blown crisis for a teenage Alees. 

“I got kicked out of my mom’s house at 15, me and my sister,” she recalled. “We ended up having our own apartment.”

How, you might ask, did a 15-year-old end up with an apartment in the city of Houston? 

“I was a door-to-door salesman with the newspaper,” Alees said. “The person I was working with at the time took us in and said that we were making so many sales that we could have our own apartment. So the next day, his wife went and got an apartment in our name.” 

Whether the apartment occupation was legal or not (it wasn’t), it was one of the first indications that Alees was capable of bringing things together and how your community is as much a feeling as it is a location. 

“I felt community more so in Houston than I did in Detroit,” Alees said. “You reminisce about the times you’re 12 or 13, those days when you’re out playing under the street light or having a dance contest. I had that experience in Houston.”

Alees felt another shock to her system when she landed in Chicago, relocating for a job as an analyst with a major airline. A new city and neighborhood dynamics had her facing some stark realities.

“I was an emotional wreck,” she recalled. “I had no idea what it felt like, looked like, the experience of someone outside of your house selling drugs. Gunshots and loud music, drinking all night and smoking weed - I just had no earthly idea how to navigate through that.”

Alees is a woman of faith and through a connection at church, she began to understand how to navigate her new surroundings, forming Drawn Out Ministries, a nonprofit designed to help reduce recidivism and provide recently incarcerated individuals with support services that help them integrate back into the community. 

“Drawn Out Ministries is definitely a calling,” she said. “When I was ministering in jails, I kept seeing the same people over and over. It’s because they were getting out of jail and people were just dropping them off in the same spot where they picked them up. You’re not giving them options, you’re not opening up their minds and letting them see different things and figure out what their niche is.”

“I want to make sure that they know what they’ve been created to do,” Alees continued. “I start them on the path to doing it.”

It’s a calling that began with self-reflection. 

“I really started taking inventory of what I have been doing my whole life,” Alees recounted. “When I first got saved, and came to know the Lord, I created this big bible study. When I got to United Airlines, I brought this group of women together. Everywhere I went I always organized a small group together, that was my community.” 

There’s an appropriate witticism that describes the way Alees has approached her community work: “When the going gets tough, the tough get going.” Some people may shy away from tough issues and challenging circumstances, but not Alees. 

Already a block club president for 1000 and 1100 N. Harding, the founder and CEO of Drawn Out Ministries, and a corporate event organizer at United Airlines, she’s now taking on the task of police reform.

Inspired to run by CLF fellow LaCreshia Birts, Alees was elected as Police District Councilwoman in the 11th District during the 2023 election.

“I feel like we will have some success,” Alees commented. “Will we address all of the issues that all of our police districts encounter? Probably not within the first four years, but we’ll definitely put a dent in it. I 100 percent believe we’ll be successful.”

It would have been hard to predict Alees’ journey from a homeless teenager to nonprofit CEO and elected official. The odds weren’t in her favor, after all. But her circumstances were never going to define her.

“Sometimes you have to look at yourself,” Alees said about self reflection to identify your own unique talent. “It’s easy to blame others for what’s not going right, not give people chances. Focus on you. What is in your realm of influence that you can change to make a better impact?”

Alees Edwards is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

key•stone (noun) : something on which associated things depend for support; the most important part of a plan, idea, etc. on which everything else depends

When you’re looking for change, it takes a village. It takes an idea for people to rally around, a vision of a better path, a different approach and a leader to direct the effort. The idea is the bright star. 

The idea is the easy part.

It takes work. Hard work. Necessary work.

Understand the process of change and appreciate the effort it takes and you begin to understand the unique value of Lee Ann Eiland. 

She gets things done. For herself, for her family and for her Austin community. 

“How can I leave an impact on the world?”

It’s a common question for Lee Ann, who moved to Austin from Lakeview with her family as an 11-year-old. More than 30 years later, it’s still the people who fuel her determination to make an impact. 

“There was more of a community in the Austin neighborhood,” Lee Ann said of her move and life in the community. “I’m inspired by ordinary, everyday people.”

Lee Ann is driven to succeed and she’s spent the past two decades working on herself so she can bring others along with her. 

A degree in biochemistry from the University of Illinois Chicago and another in organizational management from Concordia University barely scratch the surface of her knowledge base. 

“Exposure gives you a different outlook on life.”

For the better part of 20 years, Lee Ann has crafted a career in nonprofit development - a role not typically held by a Black woman - helping organizations working in social services, education and health care expand their capacity for programming, outreach and placing them on a path to sustainability. 

Over the years, she observed, absorbed, and learned the nuanced decision-making processes that go into funding a nonprofit, a cause or initiative. That emotionally intelligent approach allowed her to see avenues that would allow her to bring that knowledge home with her. 

“It forced me to put the lens on how I can bring everything I’ve been exposed to outside of my neighborhood back to my neighborhood,” she explained. “I never saw my career coming back to the neighborhood.”

But it has. 

She saw the disinvestment in the community, a lack of fundamental services, and the social ills that inevitably followed. In true Lee Ann form, she acted, using the lessons she’s learned in the professional world to bring investment back to Austin.

Mama Needs Love Too is a group for women, specifically mothers, to come together in a safe space to share their experiences - the good, the bad and the ugly - as a parent and to access vital resources related to their social, emotional, mental and physical health. 

“It gives people the opportunity to have a safe space to talk about the joys of motherhood and the not-so-great things about motherhood.”

Along with her co-founder, Lee Ann organizes the group and hosts a podcast. It’s the necessary work needed to aid an often overlooked group and caring for the caregivers. 

“We want to make sure people understand that they’re supported, are heard and seen,” said Lee Ann, a mother of two, who says the idea stemmed from her own post-partum struggles. “I felt like there had to be other mothers going through similar emotions, feelings, situations.” 

“If you truly are being seen as a person, then you can create the experiences you need to be a better you.”

With plans to expand programming to include professional therapy support services for parents, Mama Needs Love Too is the culmination of her personal and professional experiences that have put her unique skill set to work for the Austin community.

“My impact can still be big, but I like to focus on people who look like me, that live where I live and give them the opportunity to excel as well.”

She doesn’t clamor for the spotlight and you’re unlikely to catch Lee Ann going viral on social media. But keep your eyes open and you’ll see her as the engine that makes things move - whether she takes credit or not.

“I think that if we work together, we can have such a greater impact than if you work apart.”

Lee Ann also knows that you have a say is what happens to you and your community - you just have to work for it.

“You get to choose your own adventure. Choose wisely.” 

Lee Ann Eiland is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

If there’s one trait shared by great leaders, it’s vision. The ability to see things that others don’t, to view the world from a different lens and see the path forward separates the top leaders. 

They aren’t always the loudest voice in the room. Every great leader needs an opportunity to find their voice. 

In Chicago’s Little Village neighborhood, Diana Franco is doing just that - finding her voice. 

The daughter of Mexican immigrants is coming into her own as a community leader, coordinating the administration for one of Chicago’s largest food distribution services at Pan de Vida on South Lawndale Avenue. She’s ingrained in her community and by connecting with her neighbors in need, she’s beginning to see that her actions do indeed speak louder than her words. 

Little Village, La Villita to the locals, exemplifies the dichotomy of many Westside neighborhoods. 

“Growing up, I loved going to 26th street. It was beautiful,” said Diana. “I would get upset when people would say it was run by gun violence. They didn’t see the beautiful thing that we had there. They only saw the darkness, the negativity.”

Stroll along 26th Street during a sunny Chicago afternoon and you’ll see a bustling boulevard with merchants in nearly every store front, a vibrant corridor that’s home to some of the best restaurants the city has to offer, street vendors, and artisan craftspeople. It’s also home to a murder rate nearly four times the national average, an assault rate twice the country average and robbery numbers that approach three times the national rates. 

It’s that contrast that resonates with Diana. 

“It’s beautiful growing up in a community where Mexican culture is brought to life,” Diana reflected. “The restaurants, the people, the colors, the music.” All intoxicating elements of a rich, community-based culture.

You’re not always able to point to an exact moment, an inflection point where you find what you’re meant to do. Some of us may never find it. Sometimes it finds you. 

Diana sees herself as a force for good in La Villita. Born and raised in Little Village, she’s started her own family, continues to be active in the local sports scene through various girls empowerment programs, and has developed deep interpersonal relationships as a mentor in the Girls Empowering Meaningful Stories (GEMS). 

As Diana tells it, one of those turning point moments for her came from a group of young people who pleaded for her to be their voice after receiving news that their local community center was scheduled to be closed and felt helpless.

“Your voice matters. Your voice means something,” Diana recalled them saying to her. It was one of the first moments she realized she could be the one who could help lead the changes she could see needed to happen. 

“I’ve seen a lot of struggle in the community. I’ve seen people trying to find their voice and not being heard sometimes.” 

“I’ve seen how other people promise things to get their vote, or to get someone’s attention - they promise things,” Diana said. “For me, I’m going to come back and not only make a promise, but accomplish that promise. Hear them out, see what they need.”

The broken promises to the residents of Little Village have piled up over the years and a new generation of leaders like Diana are learning the ropes and doing their part to provide for their people. 

“I know what I love to do is help the people.” 

As just 22 years old, it’s cliche to say that Diana is wise beyond her years, but as another saying goes, “if the shoe fits.”

There’s a certain maturity necessary to take an introspective view of yourself, to really critique your strengths and weaknesses, and then surround yourself with people who can make you a better you. It’s that selfless approach that has Diana in the position she’s meant to be.  

“I think I still need to grow, I need experiences or situations to shape me in how to be a good neighbor to my community.” 

You won’t find Diana self-promoting on social media - you’ll have to talk to those around her for just a moment to hear her praises - but you will find her laying the groundwork for something bigger. 

She understands that sometimes you can’t see what you have to offer and that might be the greatest gift you can give. 

“Having someone in a youth’s life who is consistent, who will be there for them and push them, and show them different environments is important.”

Making connections and listening to people is where it starts. 

“When we give out food, it opens doors for us,” she noted, speaking about her work at Pan de Vida where she’s part of an operation that feeds more than 6,000 families per week. 

It’s in that space, in that time, that Diana has learned the most valuable lesson. 

“You can give to others even when you don’t have anything.” 

There’s a long, storied history of organizing in Chicago, including the infamous Haymarket affair that is largely credited as the origin of International Workers’ Day and for Labor Day in the United States. 

Nearly 100 years after the Haymarket affair, Crystal E. Gardner was seemingly born to carry the mantle for organizers on the Westside. 

“I grew up in a two-parent household,” Crystal said. “My mom and my dad were public servants. They were both community and political organizers.”

When your parents’ wedding was officiated by the late Rev. Clay Evans and Rev. Jesse Jackson, Sr., co-founders of Operation PUSH, you get the sense that you were born into the movement. 

“I grew up in community meetings, political meetings,” she recalled. “I grew up in Rainbow Push, walking the halls of Rainbow Push, or running the halls.”

For all the organizing and public service that her parents engaged in, it was the foundation of love and support that they instilled at home before and after her father’s passing that resonated most with Crystal. She credits her mother for maintaining the family’s stability.

“She has been an amazing example and model of what it means to be a Black woman who is successful and operates from this place of love,” Crystal said about her mother. “She has always modeled this unwavering loyalty and commitment to community, her family, her neighbors and Black women, Black Chicago.” 

Crystal’s mother has made an indelible mark on her life, offering an inspiring example of determination and perseverance. Her mother, Mary, was one of seven people who survived the Cook County Administration Building fire in 2003 after being rendered unconscious in the highrise’s stairwell after being overwhelmed with smoke. The fire claimed six of her co-workers' lives. 

“I think that story is enough to capture (her essence),” Crystal said. “That and the fact that she was able to maintain our lifestyle and the net, the foundation that my parents created after my father passed.”

While she became familiar with some of the most influential civil rights leaders in our nation’s history at an early age, Crystal was ready to set out on her own path when she enrolled at Florida A&M University, a historically Black college in Tallahassee, Fla., with some formative lessons on their way. 

She bounced between Chicago and Florida for a couple of years, even taking a semester off at one point while entertaining a troubled relationship with an older man. 

“I didn’t know how to be in real relationships then,” she said. “I was at that rebellious age.” 

“The (relationship) experience was terrible. When I was in it, I couldn’t see how horrible it was, how damaging it was and how abusive it was.”

When she decided that enough was enough, she placed a phone call to her sister. 

“She came and got me, took me back home and life was back to normal,” Crystal said. “That’s a blessing. That foundation remained.” 

Her family structure was not only life-changing for her, but also informed her work and positions about the intersection of community and government. 

“That safety net,” she reflected. “Having structures in place so that if I fall I can get back up again. I think that government, our city, has a responsibility to do the same for our communities.”

It is from that vantage point that Crystal operates, but it’s not without its pitfalls and it’s not for the faint of heart. 

“I came from labor. I used to be a union organizer. I organized myself and my co-workers in 2018, over in North Lawndale.” 

“Because I was leading those efforts and, in many situations, the face and the voice of the organizing drive, management targeted me,” Crystal recalled. “They wanted to fire me. I got my first write-up in the four years I had worked there during our organizing campaign.”

Instead of an ongoing battle for her job, she was offered and accepted a position with AFSCME Council 31, a public sector union across the state of Illinois. For a stretch of her time with the council, she was their only Black organizer in the state. 

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for the leadership of my former supervisor Abby Davis,” Crystal said. “She taught me a lot, but most importantly she allowed me to do the work and facilitate it on my own.” 

“That prepared me for the work I’m doing now in the community.”

She’s now spending time with the 290 IPO, an independent political organization that will conduct extensive political education and support issues ranging from homelessness and mental health to school funding and environmental justice. 

“We have to educate our folks in order to bring them in,” she said. “There is a solution to these issues.” 

“What an IPO does is identify, train, recruit and run candidates,” Crystal said. “The effort is transforming our communities and creating this model of co-governance, where the people, the neighbors, the residents are either in power or at the table.”

“I was activated to community organizing and activism is different from organizing,” she described. “An activist will go in and disrupt some things. An organizer is going to come up with a strategy to create opportunities to have conversations.” 

Voter registration, public service announcements, and community advocacy work just scratch the surface of the issues that drive Crystal into action. It’s fitting that her current role is that of associate political director for United Working Families. 

“We’re trying to organize people on the Westside.” 

“You’re bringing people together, they have the same issues,” she said of the issues facing Westside residents across wards. “Empowering and encouraging people and giving them a strategy, a plan, and the tools to transform their own community provides a sense of ownership.” 

And that’s really the plan, to give power back to the people. 

“Let’s try to be the power and the change that we seek,” she implored. “We can’t do that siloed and individually. We have to come together.” 

Crystal E. Gardner is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

Countless Chicagoans start their day in a similar way: with a cup of coffee and a morning commute that takes longer than it should. There aren’t many who head to work for a 13-hour shift, six days a week for at least three years. 

Fewer still would choose to put themselves through that grueling gauntlet when rejection letter after rejection letter filled her mailbox for four years until someone said, “Yes.” 

Dr. Jaleesa Harris not only chose her path, she wasn’t about to let anything stop her from achieving her dream of becoming a doctor and delivering for her community. 

“My parents taught me that we’re blessed only to be a blessing,” Jaleesa said. “That was something that my family instilled in me: giving back.”

Austin has always been home for Jaleesa, who is working her way through her first year as a resident physician at John H. Stroger Hospital, the flagship of Cook County Health which sits just south of the United Center off of Interstate 290.

“We moved around a lot when I was a kid,” she recalled. “It was always Austin, but it was this street, that street and that street.”  

A strong family kept her settled, while the frequent moves opened her eyes to what was out there, but wasn’t in her neighborhood. 

“Growing up close to Oak Park, I started noticing differences,” Jaleesa recalled. “Why does this place have so many grocery stores and so many places for kids to go and play? It looked so much safer and so much cleaner, versus my neighborhood where there’s trash on the street, barely any grocery stores.”

At one point she lived on Austin Boulevard, the dividing line between Austin and neighboring Oak Park, a village with a median income roughly three times that of Austin. 

“So just looking across the street I could see a totally different world,” she said. “Why don’t we have the same assets and resources as this place that’s literally right across the street?”

The questions weren’t rhetorical. 

By the time Jaleesa was ready to enter high school, her early interest in science became a focus on biology and anatomy and ultimately the realization that becoming a physician was her goal. 

The Whitney M. Young Magnet High School graduate matriculated to the University of Illinois Chicago where she earned a Bachelor of Science in biological sciences. She was on her way.

Then the plan hit a snag. 

“It took me a total of four years after graduating college before I got into medical school,” Jaleesa said. “That was the first time I ever doubted if it was possible.”

She applied to more than 20 medical schools during each application cycle for three consecutive years only to be rejected by every single one. 

The same family support structure that kept her settled when moving from apartment to apartment as a kid, kept her on track to achieve her goals.

“I’m grateful that I had the support of my loved ones, because they never told me to quit, they never told me to give up,” Jaleesa said. “They told me to keep trying, keep going, keep applying. 

Quitting was never an option.

“I can’t see myself doing anything else,” she said. “It was a dream I couldn’t give up on.” 

She was accepted into the Chicago Medical School at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science in 2016 and earned her Doctor of Medicine (MD) in 2022.  

The journey wasn’t what she expected, but in the end Jaleesa is exactly where she knew she would be. 

“If you have a dream and God put something in your heart, no matter how many people tell you no, no matter how many doors seem to get closed in your face, keep pushing, keep trying, keep believing because the door’s going to be opened if it’s what you were created to do, if it’s what you were supposed to do.” 

Jaleesa not only knew what she wanted to do, but she knew where she wanted her dream to become a reality. 

“I know where I want to work,” she said. “Where I work has to be on the Westside.”

One of the top students in her class, Jaleesa was a sought-after resident following her completion of medical school.

“I had the opportunity to go to more well-known universities that have hospitals downtown or out in the suburbs,” she said. “But I intentionally choose Cook County because this has the population of the people I want to serve.”

She’s investing herself back into the community that allowed her to grow. 

“I’ve always known that the Westside is rich in people,” Jaleesa said. “I saw the need for my people to be seen and to be taken care of, and to have a doctor who they can trust or speak to them in a way that comes from a place of understanding - I grew up where you grew up. I lived where you live, so I understand some of the challenges that you face.”

While she still has a few years remaining in her residency, she’s already planning her next move - a holistic approach to health care on the Westside through broad-spectrum family medicine.

“I want to address the needs of the community,” Jaleesa said. “Instead of just saying, ‘Go buy fruits and vegetables,’ I want to make sure there’s a place in your community where you can buy fruits and vegetables at an affordable price.” 

It’s a natural progression in her eyes. 

“That’s why we have gifts and talents: in order to share, in order to serve,” she said, noting that her role is to become the best resource she can for the Westside.

Her newest dream to bridge the gap between her Westside neighbors and their health care might just be her toughest challenge yet, but she’s up for it. 

“I know your dream can feel like a burden,” Jalessa said, speaking from experience. “Continue to pursue it, continue to press toward it. Don’t give up on your dream. Don’t give up on yourself and your dream will come to pass.” 

Dr. Jaleesa Harris is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

“When you’re from it, it’s beautiful.”

Spend some time around Jackie Hoffman, the founder of Peace Runners 773 and a member of the inaugural Community Leadership Fellows cohort, and you’ll start to understand that his vision of and for the Westside of Chicago is one born from love. 

You’d be hard-pressed to find many people willing to describe West Garfield Park in the same manner as Jackie. After all, it’s a neighborhood that annually is in the running for the city’s highest murder rate. Just last year, West Garfield Park had a murder rate that ran more than seven times that of the city as a whole according to the University of Chicago’s Crime Lab research.  

But love comes in many forms and despite the harsh realities of West Garfield Park, the block showed Jackie one of his earliest lessons in love. 

When you stand 6-foot-2, people tend to notice. At 300 pounds, you become a presence that can’t be ignored. 

Success on the football field came naturally for Jackie. His youth teams claimed city championships, his middle and high school squads enjoyed similar accomplishments. 

Jackie was one of the top offensive linemen in the Chicago area from the time he stepped foot into the halls of Curie Metropolitan High School. 

The block showed him love. It looked out for him. People around him saw his talent as his opportunity to head down a different path and steered him clear of the all-too-common pitfalls of gangs, drugs, and crime.

“Football saved me,” Jackie said. “It was my vehicle to get me out of the hood.”

The love from West Garfield Park helped him to the College of DuPage where he twice earned all-conference honors in football and ultimately saw him land a Division I football scholarship to Bethune-Cookman University, an HBCU located in Daytona Beach, Fla., where he earned a degree in criminal justice. 

Jackie loved football and had his eyes on the NFL, but after a workout with the Chicago Bears failed to yield a contract offer, it was time to reevaluate. The text messages he used to receive celebrating his achievements started to turn into an interrogation about his plans for the future - they didn’t understand the overwhelming odds of becoming a professional football player.

“I had to change what drove me,” Jackie said. “What else is there to Jackie Hoffman?”

It will take you about two and a half hours to drive from the Westside to Kewanee, Ill., a small manufacturing town of 12,000 that sits about an hour away from the Illinois-Iowa border. 

For Jackie, that trip started with a chance encounter on the Westinghouse College Prep school track during his daily workout when he was directed to a job opening at the Illinois Youth Center located in Kewanee. 

“You’re basically going to a prison, but with kids,” Jackie explained of his role. “You’re a correctional officer, but I really saw myself as a mentor.” 

It was in that place, isolated from everything familiar and surrounded by young people searching for guidance that he found his inspiration. 

“I saw myself in them. They were 17, 18 - they looked to me as a big brother.”

Time after time the residents at IYC would lean on him when things were tough. After an intense phone call or a heated exchange with an officer, they’d go find Jackie. 

“When everything stops. They looked at me like, ‘Can you help me?” Jackie reflected on his mentorship. “I was the only one from Chicago. This is real. This is the real deal.” 

Peace Runners 773 began with a simple idea: showing up for your people. 

The seed idea found its way into Jackie’s mind as he was learning about Juneteenth and wanted to find a way to celebrate and shine a light on Freedom Day. 

A Facebook post inviting his friends to a Juneteenth 5K at Garfield Park - three days prior - set the wheels in motion. 

When he pulled up to the corner of Hamlin and Jackson Boulevards, his family and a single Juneteenth flag by his side, he wasn’t sure what to expect, though he should have known. 

People, his people, showed up. It’s what happens when you show up for them. 

“This is what community looks like,” Jackie commented. 

The amazing growth of Peace Runners 773, the name a nod to the Chicago area code, is the embodiment of his own progression, starting with his mother. 

“Seeing her continuously show up for other people - I took her blueprint. I always make time for people.” 

Not only time, but he’s creating opportunities in new areas for his community. He’s showing the younger generation that they can succeed in places where role models are few and far between.

“Imagine 10 years from now when you have a kid who comes out and says, ‘I don’t have to play basketball or football. That doesn’t have to be my only vehicle. I can run track or I can run a marathon at 13,” because it’s available,” Jackie commented. 

“So they run a marathon and now they’re on TV or in the Olympics - from the Westside - all because they saw some people running through my community one day, and said, ‘Let me join them.’”

“There’s a space for us. Representation matters.” 

What started as a thrown-together 5k has turned into a movement on the Westside, literally. 

Expanded programming designed to get people up and moving, the annual Juneteenth 5K, the Saturday morning runs (9 a.m. every week, starting at the Golden Dome located in Garfield Park) have the people in West Garfield Park up and moving. 

Fourteen of Jackie’s runners finished a half-marathon and 10 finished the 2022 Chicago Marathon, all 26.2 miles of it. 

”It was for the betterment of my people, to show up for them,” said Jackie. “So we made free, affordable health and wellness options for people in our communities - Lawndale, Garfield, Austin - we show up.“

He’s simply returning the love West Garfield Park gave to him. 

Jackie Hoffman is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

DeAngelo Johson is different.

It’s obvious from the moment you begin a conversation with the East Garfield Park native. He speaks with a spark in his voice, always with an optimistic outlook about the topic, the day at hand, and his community. 

He’s never seen his neighborhood as a burden, as something to be ashamed of, to run away from. No, his vision is about building a thriving community by thinking outside the box to show a world of possibilities to Westside youth. 

“You’re not guilty now, but you will be eventually.” 

DeAngelo was just 12-years-old when he heard those words. Clad in a school uniform with his backpack slung over his shoulder, he was taking the long way home that his parents warned against after an early release from school. 

What started as a few questions being yelled out of the car window turned into an impromptu interrogation from the patrolling Chicago Police officer. 

“The car slowly approached me,” DeAngelo recalled. “He yelled out the window, ‘What are you doing?’” 

The officer stopped and got out of the car, clutching his gun while he continued his questioning. DeAngelo was nervous, unsure what would happen. Terrified. 

“I was stuttering to get my words out. I was scared.”

The officer said he stopped the young DeAngelo because he “looked suspicious,” a perplexing assessment of the situation to the happy-go-lucky kid walking home from school.

It wasn’t until a few years later that he started to understand the implication of the officer’s words. 

Anger could have grown. Resentment could have lingered. But DeAngelo Johnson is different. 

He didn’t accept any sort of predetermination that he’d end up another statistic. He wasn’t about to write himself off or dismiss his potential like the officer had so casually done. 

Instead of finding himself in the system, DeAngelo was motivated to change the system. 

“It was because of that interaction - I didn’t want anyone else to feel what I felt in that moment,” said DeAngelo. “I wanted to change the narrative about police and how people felt about police officers in the community, especially young black men. I didn’t want people to feel fear when they saw a police officer.” 

As soon as he was eligible, he submitted his application to the Chicago Police Department. Always a physical specimen, he aced the physical evaluation, then earned top marks on the written test. This was his moment…until it wasn’t. 

He never heard back.

Cum Laude is inscribed on his degree from the University of Illinois Chicago - a degree in criminology, of course. “With praise,” is a fitting commendation for DeAngelo; he’s handled himself with aplomb from an early age, treating challenging situations as an opportunity for growth, eschewing any inclination to sulk. 

Silence from the CPD recruiting office was a blessing in disguise. 

“I had that dream for so long,” DeAngelo remembered, “but now I’ve found another passion.”

Breakthrough Urban Ministries is a hyper-local, faith-based, nonprofit organization that provides a myriad of services focused on a profoundly simple formula: people first. 

When Breakthrough came calling with a summertime opportunity during DeAngelo’s undergraduate studies, it was an easy decision.  

“I feel like I’m changing individual lives.”

DeAngelo now oversees Breakthrough’s Sports and Fitness Academy for children ages 6 through 18 and serves as a lead mentor for middle school students as part of his role as the Associate Director of Sports and Fitness. 

It’s a role that is seemingly tailor-made for his optimistic, boundless approach to community service.

“I feel like being within the community, here at a youth facility, doing this work is where I need to be in my life, in this moment.”

Breakthrough’s 40-block focus is in the heart of East Garfield Park, bordered by California Avenue to the east, Franklin Boulevard to the north, Madison Street to the south and Central Park to the west.

You’ll find the standard sports leagues and fitness offerings when you visit the Sports and Fitness Academy, but we’re talking about DeAngelo Johnson, who’s introducing his mentees to a world they never thought to explore. 

From big-ticket sports such as triathlon, where equipment and registration fees limit access, to location-driven activities like rock climbing, and training-heavy endeavors such as distance running have all found their way into the lives of DeAngelo’s program participants. 

He won’t allow himself or his community to be boxed in, so he keeps driving forward with initiative after initiative to instill the confidence in East Garfield Park youth that they have the ability, the talent, and the determination to succeed.

“I want to be an example, but also instill others with confidence.” 

Johnson is working on a new community-wide workshop for female athletes, having noticed a talented pool of individuals struggling to find their direction, lacking the confidence to fully commit to participation. 

“The impact of having a positive mentor in your life can really change you.”  

He has plans to create his own male mentorship program, an homage to his personal mentors that saw his potential and helped show him a pathway to success. 

DeAngelo isn’t naive to the realities on his and other blocks on the Westside. Poverty, crime, drugs and despair are very real. He just doesn’t see the community as a lost cause. He sees talent, potential, opportunity - and he’s putting in the work to make sure others see the same vision. 

“We can change that narrative where Black men are getting an education, where they’re thriving in their community.”

Different indeed. 

DeAngelo Johnson is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

“It was a little crazy back then.” 

We all had avoided a Y2K apocalypse, but near the corner of West Polk Street and St. Louis Avenue in North Lawndale, the turn of the century became an inflection point in Roberta Logwood’s life. 

She was just a year or so out of Gregory Elementary School, the public school a couple blocks away from her house, when everything began to change and thrust Roberta into a world no child should have to experience. 

“I remember this guy, my friend, we used to hang out with. He died. He was murdered,” Roberta said. “That was the first time I experienced trauma like that.” 

Understandably, the middle school student lacked the tools to cope with the loss of her friend.

“It felt horrible. I had questions, but I was too afraid to ask,” she said about not being able to muster the courage to inquire about the details of the shooting. 

Then it happened a second time. This time, she was in the crowd.

“I remember gunshots. When we heard the gunshots, everybody ran,” Roberta recalled. “When I turned around and realized everyone was gone, I saw a body on the ground. I started running. I started panicking.”

Dealing with loss, with death, is a challenge for the best of us. It’s nearly impossible to comprehend at 13-years-old. 

“After that one, I started to become numb to death,” she said in a haunting retrospective. “I didn’t like feeling pain. I felt weak in those moments. I felt defenseless. I can’t bring them back. Why am I crying and feeling angry and frustrated and I can’t do anything?”

Expectedly, her emotions ran wild and her thoughts were racing, searching for answers amid a sea of options.

“Even if I wanted to go back and retaliate, then what?” She asked. “Now you’re running for your life, looking over your shoulder every chance you get. For me, I just decided that numbing myself from the pain was one of my defense mechanisms.”

Just as she began high school it happened again.

“When I was in high school, my freshman year, I was dating this guy who was older, so I thought I was cool,” Roberta remembered. “On my way to see him - gunshots - I knew it was him. When I got to the corner, my friend said, ‘He’s gone.’” 

Another tragic death. Another person who meant something to Roberta was gone before they could live.

“All that numbing went out the window,” she said. “I fell to the ground. My knees buckled. My entire life changed right in front of me.”

Story after story of loss. Trauma. Life-changing incident after life-changing incident. It became such an expected occurrence that during a funeral for a close family friend, her own brother comforted her and then told her to get ready for him to be next in the same breath. 

A startling, harrowing admission of their reality that buckled Roberta’s knees and sent her to the ground, sobbing. 

The words stuck with her and almost felt like an inevitability. In many ways her brother was trying to protect her, both physically and emotionally.

“He started training me, in a way,” Roberta recalled. “He wanted me to protect myself. He would call me to meet him and I would drive to the location and he would have me waiting for like an hour, an hour and a half. I remember sitting there for hours and he was there the whole time, but I didn’t know he was there until I felt the pop upside my head.”

The street-wise lessons were designed to keep her aware of her surroundings. 

“He taught me a lot,” she said. “ but he didn’t want me to be out there.” 

Roberta heard her brother’s advice, but she was young and emotionally on edge. She found herself hanging around people who were deeply involved in what she calls “street activity.” 

“I witnessed a lot of things. I was part of a lot of things. It changed me.” 

To her, it was a necessary experience at that moment.

“I felt like I needed to learn how to protect him and I didn’t know how to protect him,” Roberta said. “I couldn’t protect the boy that I called cousin, I couldn’t protect the boy that I was dating. I couldn’t protect any of them.” 

She had nearly given up hope of a different life, something other than the violence, drugs and chaos that surrounded her, when she found herself in frequent talks with young girls who had experienced trauma of their own. 

She was someone they could relate to, a person to open up with. 

“I love mentoring young girls,” Roberta said, admitting that initially she didn’t have all the answers the young women needed. “I decided that I was going to start having answers for them. I sought out a mentor for myself.”

It was a significant moment for Roberta, not only for the realization that her words can make a difference in the lives of young people, but for reclaiming her own voice.

“I started gaining my voice back, because over time doing all of this stuff and not trusting people, you lose your voice because you’re not quick to tell people what’s going on with you,” she said. “You want to hide it, you want to push it down and keep it away so the world doesn’t get in and break you again.”

Roberta continued to work on herself and her new-found calling as a mentor. 

“I made a vow to myself. The next time I speak to a young girl I will have an answer for her, even if it’s not the full answer,” Roberta said. “I’m going to give her something to help her go on throughout her day feeling confident about it. Then we’ll try again tomorrow with something else.”

“I was getting responses from their parents,” she recalled. “I thought they were calling to get me, but they were calling and saying that they wanted to thank me for talking to their daughter. They were grateful.”

It was that positive feedback from neighborhood parents that led her into professional roles in mentorship programs, now as the director of programs for YourPassion1st, a nonprofit designed to empower under-resourced young adults to find, define and follow their passions through mentorships, collaborative events and innovative workshops.

The path to where she is now is nothing short of remarkable. From a young girl unsure of everything happening around her to a business owner, spoken word artist and mentor, Roberta has flipped the script. 

“I felt like I had done so much wrong that there was no way of rectifying it,” she said. 

The Blossom Room is Roberta’s new nonprofit, a safe space for young girls to learn their true identity and learn how to express themselves through different forms of art, giving them skills they need to navigate the world. 

“I allow them to tap into their true identity and once they do that, they’re able to navigate the world, not the way society says they should, but the way they believe and feel that they should,” she said. “My job is to come in and say, ‘I see you. I know who you are.’ Let me help you become that.”

Roberta has spent years coming to terms with her own identity. In finding out who she is, she’s helped countless Westside women become their own person. 

“Sometimes I still feel like I’m searching. But that’s ok.”

During her Community Leaders Podcast recording, the multi-talented Roberta Logwood shared a spoken word poem:

We love to hate and the only time we come together is when catastrophic events take place, when tragedies like rape and murder become a case. 

Children on the back of milk cartons portrayed as just a face and this hurts my heart because we love so much just to hate. 

Acting like the love of money is inevitable, sending shockwaves through your brain and the pain feels electrical. 

Cold-hearted thoughts with mindless hearts pumping blood that’s artificial, you mad because your enemy called you out and dissed you. 

Disrespect their thoughts flying like missiles, handguns and pistols bullets piercing your physical. 

Can’t you see? Your past missing you, your present ain’t enough and the future trying to get you so they dismiss you. 

Put you in a jail cell and script you. 

Write you off as some statistic while you call the local news and state how you sick of this. 

But from generation to generation, these effects keep trickling, leaving loved ones to hate the system, screaming f-you to the police and now instead of serving and protecting they’re swerving and collecting. 

More than dead bodies, though. 

Witnesses with no protection, yo. 

They’re leaving us defenseless so we buy guns, which we get arrested for. 

Don’t get me wrong cause some of us deserve it. 

We killing each other for blocks that the city own. 

Put your face on a t-shirt, have a funeral just to watch another mother shed tears cause her shorty’s gone. 

Yo, Chicago. This the type of stuff we be on. 

Roberta Logwood is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

She is unapologetically her. 

She doesn’t fit in your box. She’s authentic. She’s true to herself and to her kids. 

Aisha Oliver, the founder and executive director of the Root2Fruit Youth Foundation, may not take the most traditional approach to youth engagement, but she’s getting results and providing the next generation of leaders on Chicago’s Westside with the know-how to uplift their community.

“There are so many elements to who I am.” 

Aisha grew up in the LeClaire Courts public housing project on Chicago’s southwest side, just a couple of miles north of Midway International Airport. Her family made the move to Austin when she was in middle school and has called it home ever since. 

“It was a community that had a lot of ‘lack,’ but a lot of potential and a lot of potential that’s untapped.”

And despite what it may have lacked, it was home. Aisha’s parents made sure of that. 

“I didn’t have material things, but I had a lot of love in my life,” Aisha said. “My parents’ house was the safe house. Kids always drifted to my house and my parents opened their doors to them.”

The Chicago Housing Authority razed the LeClaire site in 2011, but the impact of the community that existed in her earliest days has resonated with Aisha. 

“Growing up in the projects taught me what community was,” Aisha recalled. “I knew everybody, everybody knew me. I felt like I had several sets of parents, so many eyes on me.They cared enough to make sure I didn’t do stupid things.” 

That sense of community, and the way it sustained itself, is the cornerstone to Aisha’s approach to what she calls “village building.” 

“We’ve gotten away from that idea of community. We’ve been broken down into neighborhoods, and there’s a difference. A community helps itself. It builds within itself. That’s what the projects did, everybody helped everybody.” 

It’s a lesson well learned at home.

“Everything I do, I learned from watching what my parents did when I was growing up,” said Aisha. “They understood what it meant to give a kid love.” 

For Aisha, family is everything. At the base level, it’s the reason why her Root2Fruit Youth Foundation exists. 

“My goal was always to build a family of my own,” Aisha remarked. “A family outside of my home, with my community.” 

Root2Fruit serves Westside youth through positive reinforcement and by providing young people a unique vehicle to learn life skills that are oftentimes difficult to convey in a traditional classroom setting. It puts the world at their fingertips.

“We are doing the work that flies under the radar,” said Aisha. “I teach them, firsthand, how to do the work. I put them in spaces where they are charged with doing the work.” 

But this isn’t a work-study program. In fact, the notion that you’d even call Root2Fruit a program at all is borderline offensive to Aisha. To her, a program is ephemeral, something you do at summer camp. What she’s doing is laying foundations for success, both individually and for the community. 

“I didn’t want to be a program. That’s not how we operate. That’s not what I’m doing,” she commented. “What I’m doing is sowing seeds that are going to last a lifetime. My goal is to touch generations through the efforts I’m doing now.”

“If we had more judges, doctors, lawyers and teachers that lived in our neighborhoods and talked to our kids and interacted with them, imagine the type of inspiration that would flow through our communities,” Aisha imagined. “That’s how you alleviate these generational curses.” 

It’s a monumental task. One that takes a genuine, dedicated effort to connect with young people - her “kids” - from an early age to help them avoid the trappings of the neighborhood. 

“I honestly believe that me sharing those experiences is what helps me connect with people,” Aisha reflected about telling her personal story. “A lot of what I do is built on engagement, and connecting with people to understand them better and solve problems that way.”

There’s a realness to Aisha in everything she does. It shines through in her smile as much as it does in her open embrace and encouragement for people to be themselves. 

“For Black people, we’ve been taught how to navigate in spaces so that we don’t come off too aggressive, or too hood, or too this, or too that,” she lamented. “What it does is it teaches us to minimize who we are in order to fit into certain spaces.”

That minimization, to her, undercuts the voice of the community. 

“What I found is that people gravitated to me more because I was being authentic. I can’t take what has made me who I am and put it on the back burner to make you feel comfortable, or to make you feel less afraid. So I encourage people.”

Aisha isn’t hoping an outsider comes in with a solution to reduce crime in Austin, she thinks the solutions are already there - if you care to listen to the kids and give their ideas a platform. That’s exactly her approach with the Austin Safety Action Plan (ASAP) initiative she began with about a dozen Root2Fruit members in response to a spike in gun violence during the summer of 2020. 

“This is why I talk to kids and not adults. I’m not doing the things that I think are going to work. I’m doing the things that they told me are going to work, and those are the things that are working. If nothing else, I have learned to listen.”

ASAP’s approach to activating public spaces has worked, dropping year-over-year violent crime as much as 52 percent, according to the Chicago Police Department. 

“It’s an interesting way of doing things,” Aisha conceded. “It’s youth-led, it’s organized around them. I’m putting 150 percent behind them all the time.” 

Aisha knows that she and her kids face an uphill battle, filled with roadblocks and pitfalls that can take an emotional toll. But she also knows that in the end, they have what it takes to lead their own community into the future. 

“They’ve learned how to organize within their own community, so that they can be the next generation of leaders,” she said of the untapped talent of her kids. 

“We are sometimes hopeless, but we are not helpless.” 

Aisha Oliver is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

She’s always been a bright one: the girl her teachers loved, the student the administration couldn’t wait to showcase to the outside world every chance they had. Mercedes Pickett was the poster child, a shining star from West Garfield Park who’s lighting the way for the next generation of scholars. 

Mercedes grew up near Chicago Avenue and Pulaski Road, where West Garfield Park and Humboldt Park converge, to parents emphasizing education, mental health and wellness to their eight children - she’s the third oldest of an even split between four girls and four boys. 

“My parents stressed family, building community and pouring into that infrastructure,” Mercedes said. “I believe that gave me an opportunity and a support system. My family was my first sense of community.”

From her early academic experiences as Brian Piccolo Specialty School, now the Piccolo School of Excellence, throughout her years at Orr Academy High School, Mercedes began to recognize that her intellectual abilities were creating pathways. 

“I noticed there were opportunities for me,” She recalled. “I’ve been given opportunities because others saw potential. The more opportunities I was presented, the further I would go, the further I would grow.” 

Feeling blessed and grateful for the experiences, she began to pass her knowledge onto others, helping classmates with schoolwork and sharing her time to help them work their way through a course. 

Mercedes held the top GPA at Orr and recorded nearly 400 community service hours while in high school, a rate ten times the basic service hours requirement. 

“I ended up getting a full-ride scholarship from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Gates Millenium Scholarship,” Mercedes said. “I believe it was due to my community service. It showed that this was a student who can pass along blessings.” 

With the opportunity to attend the university of her choice, Mercedes chose Depaul University in Chicago. 

“I wanted to go to DePaul. I love their Vincentian services,” Mercedes recalled. “St. Vincent de Paul committed to the poor.” 

But it was the example shown by DePaul students while Mercedes was in high school that connected her most to the institution. 

“Going to a low income school and seeing students that were not TAs (teacher’s assistants), volunteering in my school made me want to volunteer,” she said. “If you have something, even if it may not be much, put it in the pot and watch it grow.” 

“I wanted to pour into people how they were pouring into me.”

Take a look around you. What do you see? Mercedes sees information waiting to be collected and organized, stories to be told. 

“That’s ultimately my work, to build that database,” she said.

Mercedes holds a Master of Science in computer and information systems security from DePaul, a skillset she’s used as a primary driver of her work with Earth’s Remedies, a collective she founded in 2016. 

Earth’s Remedies is a connector, a hub of developmental resources that brings together families and small businesses to free education, career readiness, financial literacy, business consultation, health and wellness, and violence prevention resources. 

What started as a tutoring program for Westside youth evolved into the encompassing resources collective as the tutors began to understand that there wasn’t a capability shortfall, but rather a support deficit that impacted the young people’s academic achievements.

“We started asking questions like, ‘What else do you need?’ and let them talk. Their hearts just started pouring out,” Mercedes remembered. “You get to see that they may have an unsafe home environment, they may not be able to walk to and from school in a safe manner, they may not have a great relationship with their educator - and those relationships, or a lack thereof, can stifle a child’s development.”

As it turned out, the scholars didn’t need remediation, they needed a relationship. 

“They needed a mentor. They needed someone to sit down with them and listen, to let them feel seen and heard,” Mercedes said. “We recognized that we have a lot of field experts in our community that we can connect them to.” 

Like anyone blessed with an analytical mind, she looked for the gaps, the role that best fit her collective’s talents.

“Where can we fit in? Where do we do our best work? It’s being that datacenter for our community.”

In action, Mercedes’ efforts look like the Save the Westside project, a community funding initiative that supported 26 small businesses during the pandemic as a way to provide momentary financial relief for Black- and Brown-owned businesses. It was another way to pour into her community what it had poured into her.

That grassroots effort created a new business network to introduce to the scholars from Earth’s Remedies. 

“We gave them a moment of relief and every time they helped us, we barter. Let’s amplify your platform, let’s amplify your resources,” Mercedes said.”In that process, the community was getting connected to the resource.”

“To be able to connect community and data - we started to build a database for small businesses, for resource centers and we have a network of families to connect them to,” she said about the ever-expanding Westside database.

Mercedes currently is expanding the scope of her work to create data solutions that help nonprofits in their decision making, a strategic toolkit for leaders looking to streamline operations to amplify their impact, enhance their fundraising capabilities, and dedicate resources to their most effective programming. 

It’s another step toward bridging the gap between needs and the available resources and putting residents of the Westside on equal footing. Even though the data is vital, Mercedes sees another marriage as vital to turning the numbers into action.

“It’s very important when you walk into these rooms that you’re telling the story, not just reporting the data.”

Mercedes Pickett is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

Alex Ramon grew up like many Midwestern kids, dreaming of fame and glory as they took to the streets after school for the latest game of basketball or football with their friends. Summertime games featured small tournaments with his brothers and cousins, with the obligatory trip to the local store for snacks to fuel the day-long events. 

“As a kid playing sports with neighbors, we used to shut down the whole block playing football, basketball.”

That competitive nature has always been a part of Alex. Born and raised in Little Village to parents who immigrated from Mexico, he credits his mother for instilling a dogged work ethic and a tendency toward a modest interpretation, if not a complete underselling of his impact on his neighbors and his community. 

His low-key approach is born out of a lifetime’s worth of lessons he’s had to learn in his 20 years. 

After his father passed away when he was a child, he found an invaluable mentor in his friend and neighbor, Matt DeMateo, the executive director of New Life Centers, the community services center where Alex coordinates operations in the food pantry. 

“Without the way he sees me, I would not be here,” Alex reflected. 

He means it literally. 

It was the summer of 2017 when Alex nearly became a statistic, simply minding his own business when he was caught in the leg by a bullet not meant for him, a byproduct of gang crossfire. 

Understandably, it was a life-changing experience. 

“Having people in the community that uplift one another is important,” quipped Alex. 

It’s that line of thinking that’s changed his approach to life and his community, using his platform at Pan de Vida to make the personal connections that earn trust and encourage cooperation. 

“I can walk up to anyone on the street and have a conversation,” Alex said of his ability to connect with Pan de Vida patrons. “We’re not just there for the food, we’re there for the connection and connecting their families to resources.”

Resources that are desperately needed in an area where the per capita income is a little more $14,000, with more than a third of the population living without any form of health insurance - a rate nearly three times the city of Chicago average. 

Alex has made it his mission to be one who uplifts and he’s working to share the inspiration he’s found through his mentors and his non-profit work to those he connects with on a daily basis.  

“I want to give back by showing the youth and showing my neighbors that it’s possible to uplift one another and to advance in life, even though we all have struggles,” said Alex about his ability to share his personal testimony with his neighbors. 

“We can overcome those struggles, little by little and we can all see the light at the end of the tunnel. Eventually, we’ll see the full light at the end.”

To accomplish his mission, he knows that he also has to invest in himself. Alex credits DeMateo for the motivation to pursue higher heights and his CLF cohort for opening his eyes to the creative avenues available to do work for his community. 

“I feel energized every time I walk into the room,” he said about the CLF training sessions, training sessions that help him grow personally and professionally. Grassroots community leaders from across the Westside, corporate and civic leaders have shared experiences in those sessions that have resonated with Alex and have helped him expand his toolbox.

The most important lesson for him: ensure you're up to the task when you want to change your environment. 

“You cannot pour from an empty cup.” 

Great storytellers have a way about them, an uncanny ability to make you feel like you’re sharing their experiences, that together you are participating in the conversation. 

Gaython “Lady” Sanders has that way about her, even if her platform isn’t quite what she imagined as a starry-eyed kid growing up in North Lawndale. 

Lady spent her days outside with the neighborhood kids getting into one adventure or another, just off of Independence Square near 14th and Drake, close to Douglass Park. 

“It was magnificent. We went outside every day to play with the neighbors,” Lady recalled. “Every block had a snowball stand, so you didn’t have to walk very far to get a quarter’s-worth of Chewies or 50 cents bags with cheese or meat on there.”

Lady comes from a big family, where stories are aplenty. Her stories touch the entire gamut of literary genres from tragedies to epics. 

One of her brothers owns his own barber shop after a stint in prison and another of her brothers works alongside him. Yet another of her brothers owns his own trucking business. Two of those brothers have been shot. One sister is a community activist and the other is, as Lady describes her, “is a go-getter, a non-stopper.”

“I watched life throw everything at them that was supposed to cancel them out, but they all came out on top,” Lady said, holding off the tears that were forming in her eyes.  

There’s a line from Mark Twain in his book “Following the Equator: A Journey Around the World” that says: “Truth is stranger than fiction, but it is because fiction is obliged to stick to possibilities; truth isn’t.” 

Lady had her eyes on the bigtime. She wanted to tell her stories to shine a light on her truth. 

“All I knew was that I wanted to be a film director and then give back,” she said, speaking about her dreams of becoming the next big star.

So when she graduated from Benedict College with a degree in mass communication and media studies she began pursuing roles that could help her get to California, where she could rub elbows with the stars in Hollywood to hone her craft.

Coincidentally, that’s when she learned from a friend about City Year, a national services program that supports students in classrooms across the country, typically in under-resourced communities, to help build a thriving learning environment.

It was her ticket to the West Coast. 

“Initially, I was going to do City Year Los Angeles. I’d get this job, go to L.A., meet Steven Spielberg, and take off with my movies,” Lady jovially remembered. “That was the plan. That was the purpose of me going to City Year.” 

Interestingly, she wasn’t entirely sure what City Year was about even after she was hired. 

“I was like, OK, let me see what City Year is,” she recalled. “On their website there was a description that basically said that we step in to take care of what teachers can’t focus on. I thought, ‘Cool, helping people.’ One day, I want to help people. I got this.” 

Little did she know that it would only take a week of training at the City Year location in Chicago for her to shift her focus from making movies to making a difference in young people’s lives. That journey to Los Angeles was put on hold. 

“I knew that I couldn’t step into these kids’ lives and then step out,” Lady said. “I told myself, ‘Lady, this is bigger than you getting to LA.’” 

As life will sometimes do, Lady was hit with a plot twist. 

“I didn’t even know I wanted to be a mentor, to be a youth advocate,” Lady reflected. “They say you know when you’ve found your purpose because you won’t feel like you have to work everyday. I don’t feel like I work. I feel like I get paid to help people.” 

My Block, My Hood, My City is about connections, helping youth venture outside of their neighborhoods to see what else the city of Chicago and the world has to offer. As a program manager working in its heralded Explorers Program, Lady leans into her artistic mind to introduce the kids to a new way of thinking. 

“We like to use exploration because we want them to take something away,” Lady said. “Whether it was the way they were greeted or the way that the presentation went. If they take one thing away, it may be enough for them to come back, be interested and ask, ‘What else can I take away?’”

It's a day-in and day-out character development exercise, helping the young people find out what motivates them as they grow into their own personality. 

“I want to give youth a platform to be able to voice their opinions,” she said. “My job calls me the ‘Voice of the Young People,’ because I don’t mind speaking up for youth when I know they can’t speak, don’t want to speak, or are too shy to speak.” 

There aren’t fast solutions to decades worth of divestment, but by listening to learning from her Explorers, Lady knows where to start.

“It’s so simple that it’s scary,” she said. “I’m realizing what youth actually need and sometimes it’s not what we’re shoving into communities.” 

“It’s the basic needs that need to be met. Once you get that, then you can conquer everything else.” 

Lady is still preparing for the right time to launch her film career. But for the time being, she’s doing what all the great storytellers do, she’s listening, learning and taking others along for the ride. 

Lady Sanders is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.

Proverbs about perspective aren’t particularly unique. You can find references in folklore around the globe, with metaphorical variations abound. Whether it’s walking a mile in someone else’s shoes or seeing the world through someone else’s eyes, the sentiment is the same: understanding a person’s circumstance requires a willingness to learn about their situation. 

From his childhood days in West Garfield Park to his role as a Chicago police officer living in Austin, perspective has been everything for Edward Whitaker, Jr.

Ed, as he’s known to his friends, was blessed with a solid support system. 

“I came from a two-parent household, real church-going,” he recalled. “We were going to church every day. We had Sunday school, the regular service, then the afternoon service.”

His church family, his actual family and a tight-knit group of neighborhood friends were his village, the ones who helped him grow from a quiet kid struggling to fit in into a star athlete and into a community leader.

“I grew up as an introvert,” Ed said. “The reason for that is that I stutter. Most people thought that was a sign of me being shy, being calm, being reserved, but no, I didn’t want to be laughed at.”

Working through a speech impediment is a complicated thing for an elementary school kid on the Westside where displaying any vulnerability could lead to ridicule. 

“Most people didn’t know I stuttered,” as Ed recalled his early reluctance for public speaking. “All throughout grammar school, I had speech therapy.”

The tricky thing about stuttering is that there is no one-size-fits-all approach to treatment, each person has to find their own path. Ed found his comfort zone on the basketball court. 

“Sports helped me get out those aggressions,” he said when reflecting on his frustrations when he was learning to verbalize his thoughts. “I started to talk more during sports.” 

If you’re familiar with the rapid Chicago high school basketball scene - the term “March Madness” was coined in Illinois - you can understand that being a player on one of the best teams in the Chicago Public League has some advantages. 

“I wasn’t made fun of because the basketball team was really good,” Ed said, perhaps understating the team’s significance on the Westside. 

Ed was a junior guard on the 2002 Illinois High School Association state championship basketball team from Westinghouse, the first and only boys basketball title in the school’s history. 

The title was a point of pride in the community, a byproduct of growing confidence inside of a young man and his teammates, but the grace it afforded Ed in his speech and leadership journey was the real success.

“Every chance that I get to do public speaking, I do it,” Ed said. “Most people think that I’m doing it for them, but it’s really for me. It’s like self preservation. I’m trying to tell myself and prove to myself to not let that particular issue stop what you need to do.”

Life as a police officer on the Westside of Chicago is full of opportunities. There are opportunities to learn about people, the neighborhoods, and about yourself as you navigate challenging environments and personal interactions.

“I learned to navigate my emotional feelings and not let someone’s opinion break me down,” Ed said. “When people see the police officer, they normally clinch up and things like that. I understand that it’s just an emotion and it’s not me, as a person. They aren’t talking about Edward.”

That’s a sentiment you often see from a person whose personal experience has shown them that painting with a broad brush can miss the most important things about a person.

“Your perspectives in life change with your experiences,” Ed said. “You have to look at things with a small lens.” 

It’s that personal, engaged approach that has Ed working as a coach and mentor for the Chicago Westside Police and Youth Sports Conference. 

“It’s a holistic approach to kids,” Ed described the conference. “You have athletics, but then you have the police department involved, you have the churches involved, you have nonprofits involved. It’s not just athletics. It goes deeper than just sports.”

“I wanted to challenge myself to become somebody that someone can look up to,” he said. “Legacy is very important to me.”

Part of building a legacy is to be a beacon for his community, something he embraces as part of the Austin Response Team, a group of faith-based leaders and not-for-profit organizations that mobilize in areas that have experienced traumatic events to provide resources and support for the residents. 

“It’s really empowering the community,” Ed said of the group’s work to connect people with resources. Being that conduit, the go-to guy for Austin is a role he embraces. 

“If someone needs something in particular, I know a guy. 

If someone wants a particular grant, I know a young lady, who is in my cohort, who is pretty good at grant writing and who has her own business,” Ed said. “If you want to start a running program or get into a running program, I know a guy. If you want to talk about reparations, I know a lady.”

For Ed, it’s about being there for each person, as an individual. Learning about them and their situation in order to better understand their circumstances - walking a mile in their shoes. A lesson he learned early in life when he was finding his voice. 

Edward Whitaker, Jr. is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.This is a long form text area designed for your content that you can fill up with as many words as your heart desires. You can write articles, long mission statements, company policies, executive profiles, company awards/distinctions, office locations, shareholder reports, whitepapers, media mentions and other pieces of content that don’t fit into a shorter, more succinct space.

There’s an inescapable air of Southern hospitality that fills your soul when you have a chat with Arewa Karen Winters. You can still hear a slight drawl in her words that belies her 50-year residency in Austin on Chicago’s Westside. 

Her family and relatives made their way to Chicago in the early 1970s, relocating from southern Mississippi and Alabama and bringing that uniquely southern sense of community along with them. 

“I’m from the South, I’m country,” said Arewa. “We just see people that we love and we want to care about.”

Arewa’s extended family was quick to put down roots in Austin, owning a grocery store, candy shop, pharmacy and a record store near her home. It was the sort of integration into a community that created a sense of belonging, a network on which to rely. 

“We sat down for dinner together. There was a very strong sense of extended family in the community,” Arewa recalled. “I didn’t just have my mother, I had my friend’s mother. We were outside. We were engaged with one another.”

For her, the Westside was a model for what a community should be. 

“Most of the businesses at that time in the community were owned by people who lived in the community,” she noted. “It was a lot of love and a lot of positive energy. It was something that I wish the children of today could experience. It really helped shape and mold a lot of us.”

While the blueprint for the Westside was right in front of her, it wasn’t a completely smooth transition for Arewa and her family. 

By 1970, Austin was rapidly becoming a case study in white flight as it saw a dramatic demographic shift toward the end of “The Great Migration” that saw some six million African-Americans flee rural portions of the southern US states to urban areas in northern states. In less than two decades, Austin transformed from nearly 99 percent white to 75 percent Black. 

“We were one of the first African-American families to purchase a home on the block where my family still lives.”

The shifting population in the area led to pushback that ranged from economic to personal. Blockbusting and redlining dealt a substantial blow to the economics in Austin, with devalued property and dwindling investment contributing to depressed economic conditions for its residents - a vacuum ripe for an influx of drugs and violence. 

“I began to understand the impacts of things that happened in our community that caused a lot of the results,” Arewa said. 

For Arewa, it meant watching her brothers be chased from playgrounds, taunted and harassed and taking extra caution for everyday activities. 

It was a real-world, first-hand lesson in power dynamics and social justice.  

The principle of justice is the central force in Arewa’s work, currently holding roles with a range of nonprofit organizations addressing issues of poverty, racism, human rights, and youth development. 

“My father was a nurturer,” Arewa noted about her inspiration. “I love people. I love my community.”

Her community initiatives show the sort of love that grows and matures alongside her neighborhood, an evolution that confronts the issues of the moment, yet sets the table for the future. 

One of those critical issues for her, a personal one, is reforming interactions between police and the citizens they serve. After her nephew was shot and killed by police, Arewa began advocating for victims and families impacted by gun violence. 

“When we have a police department and a community that are truly engaged with one another, we can reduce the violence and the crime that is plaguing our communities,” she said about police and community partnerships. “That’s a bigger goal for me than anything else.”

She was elected to a seat on Chicago’s Police District Council in the 15th District in 2023 after serving as a co-chair on the mayor’s Use of Force Working Group. 

“I want to listen to my community. I have ideas and thoughts, but this whole piece is about listening to the community,” Arewa said, but encouraged her neighbors to “bring your folding chair.” 

Arewa sees the position as critical to return Austin to the self-sustaining, thriving community she knows it can be. But it takes community involvement. 

“Holding them (police) accountable in certain areas is a point, but also look at how we’re going to hold ourselves accountable, now as elected officials, in this work. It’s a big deal.”

The entrepreneurial spirit that runs in her family is not lost on Arewa. In fact and in her vision for Austin, that spirit is critical to revitalizing the area.

“Everything I’m doing is about my children and my grandchildren,” she explains. “I want to retire from my own business, then I want to be able to put that business in my daughter’s hands or my grandson’s hands.”

She’s working on a business plan with her daughter to open a neighborhood restaurant, a snack shop, a community hub - a place for inspiration and motivation for young people. Arewa envisions a place where people can come, eat and learn about their history.

“I’m going to be right there on that corner,” she says, having already identified a location where she wants to open that shop honoring the legacy of her parents and family.

Valuing the people around you, the businesses they create, and their perspective on life can go a long way. For Arewa, it’s those simple acts of kindness and love things that will bring Austin back. 

“Civility is the foundation for any civilization.”

Arewa Winters is one of 18 up-and-coming Westside leaders selected to be a part of the inaugural cohort of Community Leadership Fellows. Community Leadership Fellows (CLF) is a leadership development experience that involves educational workshops, tactical training, collaborative learning, coaching, mentoring and networking. We believe that the investment in homegrown talent will lead to sustainable, vibrant communities.