SOUTH SHORE — Netpaintings organizers, architects, designers and project funders gathered on the South Shore to celebrate paintings that make communities healthier.
The winners of the Chicago Neighborhood Development Awards, which recognize projects and Americans who contribute to “building healthier neighborhoods in the Chicago metropolitan area,” were announced last week at the South Shore Cultural Center, 7059 S. South Shore Drive. The theme of this year’s awards “Legacy Remodeling. “
“These are, as they say, the Oscars of Community Development,” said Meghan Harte, director of the Chicago Local Initiatives Support Corporation, which organized the awards for 28 years.
“Everyone works very hard and does a wonderful job, but being identified doesn’t happen often. It’s an opportunity for that. “
The Inner-City Muslim Action Network’s food and wellness center, which opened in July 2021 and delivered loose food to local residents, won the Healthy Community Award. It has also served as a source for emergency food distributions, COVID-19 testing, and vaccination campaigns. the pandemic
The center not only provides nutrition, but puts citizens “in a verbal exchange with organizers and activists who look radically at the neighborhood,” said IMAN founder Rami Nashashibi. “It’s not just a service; [is connected to] a broader view of what the true network would look like.
The food and wellness center has a “symbiotic relationship” with facets of the Go Green on Racine transformation project, such as the recently opened Englewood Fresh Market, an effort to revive the closed Racine Green Line stop.
The initiative aims to provide citizens with resources to get fitness results while also addressing violence and poverty.
Resident-led projects like Go Green on Racine are indispensable in neighborhoods like Englewood after decades of “total neglect” by local leaders, Nashashibi said. But governments also make sustained investments in establishments that “work with and for the community. “he said.
“The legacy of. . . the progression of the network will have to be a component of a broader movement for socioeconomic [and] racial justice and reparations in the United States,” Nashashibi said.
The Ford Calumet Environmental Center won the Richard H. Foundation Award. Driehaus for architectural excellence in design.
The environmental center, which opened its doors to the public in September, set a “precedent for a new long-term sustainable Calumet region,” event organizers said. It’s in Big Marsh Park, a rehabilitated commercial wasteland that is the largest herb site. in the Park District.
The center features an exhibit on the history of the park’s lands that reflects the other Anishinaabe peoples as the original population of the land that would be Chicago; the commercial history of the region; Chicagoans who live in the neighborhoods around Big Marsh Park; and neighborhood activism in many areas.
It also houses systems that inspire citizens to interact with nature, with data on plants, animals and local habitats.
The Altgeld Family Resource Center, 955 E. 131st St. in Riverdale, he won the Driehaus Foundation Award. The construction of a branch of the Chicago Public Library, a daycare center and a network center in Altgeld Gardens.
Two Near West Side projects: the SOS Children’s Villages Illinois foster home at 1133 W. 13th St. and the McCrory Senior Apartments ensembles at 1639 W. Washington Blvd. they won the third place award.
Two North Lawndale projects connected to others also won community progress awards Wednesday.
The North Lawndale Employment Network’s 20,000-square-foot campus allowed the organization to double its capacity and consolidate its systems when it opened in March. Entrepreneurs
North Lawndale: The Next Chapter is a quality of life plan that aims to unite homeowners, protection and transportation, address inequalities in fitness, and access high-quality education and recreation programs.
The Quality of Life Plan, which has been in place since 2016, won the Outstanding Community Plan Award. The employment campus, included in the plan, won the Outstanding Award for Real Estate Development in Nonprofit Neighborhoods.
“Today, North Lawndale and its citizens have earned the respect we deserve,” said Richard Townsell, CEO of Lawndale Christian Development Corporation.
Dalia Aragon, who supports family circle businesses and housing paintings for the advancement and preservation of affordable housing in Albany Park, won the Emerging Leader Award. He founded the nonprofit Israel’s Gifts of Hope, which supports families affected by gun violence, in 2016 to honor his brother, Israel, who was shot and killed in Albany Park.
This year’s physical awards were created through Project Fire, a Firebird community arts program that uses blown glass and ceramics to let other young people perceive how their minds, bodies and feelings cope with trauma. Project Fire artists are also working on creating and installing art markers in honor of the other 38 people killed in the 1919 race riots.
All winners:
Subscribe to block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3) newsroom run by journalists. Every penny we earn is raised in Chicago neighborhoods.
Click here for Block Club with a tax-deductible donation.
Thank you for subscribing to Block Club Chicago, an independent, 501(c)(3) newsroom, managed through journalists. Every penny we earn raising cash in Chicago neighborhoods. Click here for Block Club with a tax-deductible donation.
Listen to “Everything Is Fine: A Block Club Chicago Podcast”:
The “nasty and salacious” dispute between Maple owners
The long commercial framework of the Command and Experimentation Center is designed to give the impression of going back in time.
Han, who joined the U. S. Postal Service. in November, he said his subtle gaze encouraged mid-century American factors.
The artists come with a number of Grateful Dead tribute bands, adding Terrapin Flyer and Rock