January 30 - February 5, 2023

The Playground

ON THE COVER: Austin Harvest, which started as a pop-up market in the summer of 2020, is led by high-school students from By the Hand Club for Kids (By the Hand Club for Kids photo). THIS PAGE: Pastor Jody Bady distributes food through the Jehovah Jireh food pantry (Facebook photo). DISCLAIMER:

ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT RECOMMENDATIONS

The Impact of Design!

Architecture & Design Film Festival

The Chicago Architecture Center is hosting the 14th edition of the Architecture & Design Film Festival (ADFF) at the Chicago Architecture Center, 111 E. Wacker Drive. This festival showcases a diverse program of 15 global films that investigate the impact of design on the worlds of art, fashion, architecture, urban planning and housing. Founded in 2009, the Architecture & Design Film Festival celebrates the creative spirit that drives architecture and design. Through a curated selection of films, events and panel discussions, ADFF creates an opportunity to educate, entertain and engage all types of people who are excited about architecture and design. Tickets are $20 per film ($15 for CAC members). For a full schedule of the February 1 - 5 event, information on each film, and to purchase tickets, visit filmfest.architecture.org

She'll Take You There!

Mavis Staples with special guest Celisse Chicago’s own Civil Rights icon and living legend Mavis Staples returns to Orchestra Hall at 220 S. Michigan Ave. for one night only, at 8 p.m. Saturday, February 4. Staples will bring her iconic smoky sound to a scintillating evening of soul, gospel and her signature brand of R&B. Celisse, the phenomenal singer/songwriter and spoken word artist, opens the program with a “powerhouse voice, infectious personality and guitar shredding that has earned her standing ovations” (Minneapolis Star Tribune). Tickets for the 150-minute concert are $40+ cso.org/performances/22-23/scp-specials/mavis-staples/

Figaro!

‘The Factotum’

Grammy-nominated baritone Will Liverman and DJ King Rico have created a new work, “The Factotum,” that updates Rossini’s “The Barber of Seville” to a Black barbershop on Chicago’s South Side. Commissioned jointly by Lyric Opera and Houston Grand Opera, and running five performances February 3-12, the world premiere of this irresistibly upbeat work celebrates the strength of community. “The Factotum” blends diverse musical styles to create a soul opera; moving from gospel and funk, to hip-hop, classic barbershop quartet, to R&B. Those styles connect brilliantly with classical singing in a very human comedy that redefines everything that opera can be. Liverman is an alumnus of Lyric’s Ryan Opera Center, and is rapidly rising to national prominence. He recently triumphed at the Metropolitan Opera. Sung in English with projected English supertitles, “The Factotum” runs 140 minutes with one intermission at Harris Theater, 205 E. Randolph St. Tickets $35+ at lyricopera.org

No Business Like Show Business!

‘The Book of Merman’

Visit the Skokie Theatre, 7924 N. Lincoln Ave., Skokie, for “The Book of Merman," where Broadway’s biggest star collides with one of Broadway’s biggest hits in this hilarious new musical comedy filled with original songs. After a frustrating day of canvassing the neighborhood for prospective converts, two Mormon missionaries knock on the door of legendary belter Ethel Merman. Mistaking the two young men for door-to-door salesmen, Ethel welcomes them in, resulting in a clever and witty journey about being true to oneself and embracing who you really are. Playing at 7:30 p.m. Fridays & Saturdays and 2 p.m. Sundays, February 3 - 26. Tickets are $38 - $45 at skokietheatre.org/book-of-merman.html

Compiled by Dave Hamilton

The Dawn of a New Year!

Lantern Festival Celebration

Close out the Chinese New Year season as The Chicago Cultural Center’s Preston Bradley Hall, 78 E. Washington St., is transformed into a lively Chinese marketplace. It will feature a lion dance, music, and more by some of Chicago’s most illustrious performers, as well as food, calligraphy, puppets, a selfie booth, trinkets and more. The noon - 4 p.m. event on February 5 is free and open to the public.

Pop Art Fiction!

‘Andy Warhol’s Tomato’

In anticipation of the upcoming exhibition “Warhol: Featuring Andy Warhol Portfolios: A Life in Pop / Works from the Bank of America Collection” hosted by the Cleve Carney Museum of Art and McAninch Arts Center, 425 Fawell Blvd., Glen Ellyn. Buffalo Theatre Ensemble presents Vince Melocchi’s “Andy Warhol’s Tomato.” Guest director Steve Scott directs this 80-minute fictitious tale of unlikely friendship and inspiration running February 2 – March 5. It is 1946 in Pittsburgh. An 18-year-old Andy Warhol finds himself in the basement of a working-class bar. Over a summer, Andy gives and gets inspiration, guidance, and friendship from a surprising source. Performances are at 8 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays and 3 p.m. Sundays. Tickets are $42 at atthemac.org

Chicago Scenes!

‘SPEAK EASY’: Will Armstrong

The Jackson Junge Gallery, 1389 N. Milwaukee Ave., will be kicking off its 2023 season with a solo exhibition featuring the work of Will Armstrong. Armstrong is well known for his layered technique and dedicated portrayal of places he holds dear; his new collection builds on his love of layers, favorite places and storytelling. Inspired by American legends, Armstrong’s work has taken a turn to include figures and text as he explores the underbelly of American history in SPEAK EASY. 11 a.m. - 8 p.m. daily through February 26, FREE.

Coming of Age!

‘The Great Khan’ Redtwist Theatre, 1044 W. Bryn Mawr Ave., announces the world premiere of “The Great Khan,” written by Michael Gene Sullivan and directed by Jamal Howard. Jayden is a high schooler struggling with what he wants to be, a nerd who loves video games and fantasy, and a strong man who doesn’t need to fear anyone. Ant is a young woman rediscovering herself after tragedy and trying to define herself against society’s expectations. Gao Ming is a precocious YouTuber, committed to helping people fully express their authentic selves. W hen Jayden looks for answers from his most recent homework assignment, the friends’ lives are upended by the arrival of Genghis Khan, the Great Khan himself. Playing Thursday - Saturday at 7:30 p.m. & Sundays at 3:30 p.m. through February 26. $40 at redtwisttheatre.org

Toot Toot Beep Beep!

‘Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! The Musical!’

The Young People’s Theatre of Chicago presents the Chicago premiere of “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus! The Musical!” at Greenhouse Theater Center, 2257 N. Lincoln Ave. Adapted by Mo Willems from his own 2004 Caldecott Honor Award-winning book, “Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus” is the story of an irrepressible Pigeon who wants everyone to know that he never gets to have any fun. But one day the neighborhood Bus Driver is running late (gasp!) and Pigeon believes his dream to drive the bus might actually come true! But can Pigeon actually drive a bus? And more importantly, should we let Pigeon drive the bus? Willems’ innovative and high-octane musical turns into an interactive romp about finding your own special, feather-filled place in life! Playing at 10 a.m. & 1 p.m. on Saturdays, and 1 p.m. on Sundays, February 4 - 26. Tickets are $21 for children, and $27 for adults at yptchi.org/dont-let-the-pigeon-drive-the-bus

Patrick: How about we talk about our favorite Olympic team or Olympian? I know I’m torn because there’re literally tons to choose from. That said, have at it. Shoot, y’all may inspire me to pick.

Russ: Hello, everyone. All right, so I would like to acknowledge the 1976 U.S. Boxing Team.

Patrick: Sugar Ray’s year, right?

Donald: Yep.

Russ: Right. They had Sugar Ray Leonard, Michael Spinks, Leon Spinks, and Howard Davis leading the 11-man team. Easily one of the greatest boxing teams I’ve ever seen. 7 of the 11 members earned medals, with 5 of those medals gold. Sugar Ray Leonard, the Spinks brothers—Leon and Michael—Leo Randolph, and Howard Davis—who, just so you know, was voted the best boxer of the whole tournament—all got gold.

John: And, if memory serves, Sugar Ray won all 5 of his fights.

Russ: A quick add-on: Many of the boxers went on to win championships as pros.

Patrick: Right, right, Russ. John, what do you have?

John: All right, so two teams stand out for me: the most dominant team ever and just a

very good story I want to tell. So, the dominant team is the very first Dream Team. 1992. The United States were getting fed up with not winning any medals using amateur basketball players—college players just prior to the NBA players taking the Olympics by charge for many, many years. Larry Bird, Magic Johnson, Michael Jordan—dynamic trio.

Donald: And, shoot, think about the rest of them cats: Charles Barkley, Karl Malone, David Robinson, uhm…

Patrick: Chris Mullin, Patrick Ewing, John Stockton, Clyde Drexler and, shoot, Scottie friggin’ Pippen!

John: Don't forget Duke's Christian Laettner, the only college player. That was a heckuva team. Obviously, they dominated the field and won the gold. And the one thing that was almost as overwhelming as the talent this U.S. team

possessed was the collection of enjoyable personalities.

Donald: Those players were celebrities big time. And we know they partied!

John: Of course. And before I forget, let me send a shoutout to the 1980 hockey team. Our—the U.S.—self-image was in shambles, while the team formerly known as the Soviet Union was considered an unstoppable machine. However, luckily for the U.S. team, they had a head coach named Herbert Paul Brooks and he and his “team that could”… did. With a victory in a match that later came to be known as the “Miracle on Ice,” the U.S. team conquered not only the unstoppable machine, but also the poor U.S. self-image that had been created.

Russ: That was good, John. I’d nearly forgotten about that.

Patrick: To be honest, y’all, I’ve

heard of it, but had no idea the details of it. Could be a helluva documentary, too. All right, Don…what you got, baby?

Donald: Let’s see…so I’m going to lean on Simone Biles. With her staying strong and keeping her head up, as well as still able to attempt to perform during the 2020 Olympics in Tokyo. With her connection to Larry Nassar, who was a physician who treated high-profile, elite athletes, but who came to be known as sexually abusive to many of his clients—including Simone Biles—she began to suffer mentally. Someone we’ve associated with topexcellence, she became unable to overcome and had to withdraw. That she had the courage to stand up and down nails my top spot.

Patrick: Good deal, fellas. Y’all done captured it all.

Any comments or suggestions? Email pedwards@streetwise.org

Rashanah Baldwin

Vendors Russell Adams, John Hagan and Donald Morris chat about the world of sports with Executive Assistant Patrick Edwards.

Austin Eats:

community takes action to end 'food apartheid' there

by Michelle Meyer

Vegan egg rolls simmer on a portable stove in a school gym. The aromas of sweet potato pie and cooked collard greens fill the room. People sample these and other dishes before collecting print-outs of the recipes and pamphlets with information about local food resources. Then they file into a nearby room to watch a documentary about food deserts in their neighborhood.

On Oct. 7, 2022, over 100 neighbors and community organizers gathered for a free film and food showcase in the Austin neighborhood of Chicago’s West Side. Vegan World Cafe offered free food, and Beyond Hunger gave cooking demonstrations. This is how a neighborhood tries to create a food oasis out of a food desert.

Austin is the largest Chicago neighborhood geographically and the second-most populous in the city, with nearly 100,000 residents. But it has limited grocery store options that sell fresh produce, all over one mile apart from each other. Austin’s population is over 75% Black, and the median household income was $35,500 a year prior to the pandemic. The pandemic made a bad situation worse in Austin, and one of the few grocery stores, Save A Lot, closed in 2020.

The food and film showcase was hosted by Austin Eats, a collaboration of 22 organizations working on promoting healthier food options in the neighborhood by providing emergency food access, grocery stores, food education, community gar-

dens, and marketing so that residents knew about these efforts.

Austin Eats built on existing efforts to promote healthier food options in Austin. “A lot of these organizations were starting to work together,” said Grace Cooper, project coordinator at parent organization Austin Coming Together. But the pandemic made the work of Austin Eats more urgent, driving the need for emergency food access. “During COVID, it became clear that, all right, let's formalize this group,” Cooper said.

Austin Coming Together, founded in 2010, coordinates dozens of organizations around a “quality of life plan” for Austin that includes stable housing, improved education, and a safer neighborhood. Austin Eats specifically focuses on providing access to food through a combination of food pantries, groceries, and gardens. Fresh produce access is the main goal since the majority of food options in Austin come from liquor stores and corner stores that carry little or no fresh produce.

Austin Coming Together rejects the term “food desert,” however, preferring to call Austin a victim of "food apartheid" to more accurately describe the systemic racism and neglect the neighborhood has experienced.

“We're trying to build community and talk about food access and build collective power over trying to improve food access,” says Ethan Ramsay, Austin Coming Together lead organizer.

From left: A Beyond Hunger volunteer delivers food during the pandemic (Beyond Hunger photo). The Jehovah Jireh #1 Outreach Ministry (Michelle Meyer photo). Pastor Jody Bady (in red) distributes food in Austin (photo provided by Jody Bady).

The New Fast Food

Food pantries are a vital link in the Austin Eats chain. Some are home grown; others are based in neighboring communities.

One Austin Eats pantry, Jehovah Jireh #1 Outreach Ministry, is run by Pastor Jody Bady. It offers free pantry items like canned food and pasta on weekdays out of a food truck that Bady drives to areas with high levels of crime, based on information from the 15th District Chicago Police Department. The pantry offers nonperishable foods and fresh produce, and meats on Wednesdays. Bady believes that bringing fresh food to these areas will help turn them into “safe havens.”

Last year, Austin Eats helped expand Jehovah Jireh’s reach by providing another food truck and funding to build a permanent pantry.

The permanent pantry is located at 5116 W. Chicago Ave. and is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. The pantry offers nonperishable foods and fresh produce and meats are offered on Wednesdays. AustinTalks.org reported that Bady supplies the pantry from other pantries and donations. He hopes to create a partnership with a large organization so he can supply fresh produce more than once a week.

In neighboring Oak Park, Austin residents can drive up to a parking lot lined with orange flags directing them to the entrance of a food pantry run by Beyond Hunger, an Austin Eats partner. There, pre-packed boxes of food are loaded into their trunks. To ensure that the food suits the needs and diets of recipients, Beyond Hunger relies on a client advisory council made up of people who have used its services in the past.

“That voice is really important to have as part of every aspect of our organization,” said Sarah Abboreno Corbin, Beyond Hunger’s communication manager. “And I think that's probably the biggest piece of advice I might have for any other pantry.”

Inflation is making it harder for Austin Eats to keep up with the demand for food, which has been increasing. The organization has seen 40% increase in people requesting its services in 2022 compared to past years.

“We're experiencing this exponential impact because everyone's experiencing that increase in cost of food. And we are spending more money on food at the same time we are needing to serve more people,” Abboreno Corbin says.

Beyond Hunger provided food to over 40,000 people last year, demonstrating the value of partnerships with more affluent communities. It also launched a health ambassador program that trains Austin residents to teach neighbors about healthy eating and diabetes management.

40 Acres Fresh Market

The 40 Acres Fresh Market does not have a set date for construction since there have been multiple development setbacks. Liz Abunaw said she started on creating store designs in April 2021. After switching designers and going through over eight redesigns, Abunaw said her team submitted a final design for permit approval.

One of the logistical challenges was finding a route for truck deliveries. The store, located at 5713 W. Chicago Ave., sits at the intersection of North Waller and West Chicago avenues. Waller Avenue is a residential street that does not allow for trucks to pass through, so Abunaw took time to find a design that made sense for the external parking lot and internal receiving and back-of-house operations.

Now with a final design submitted, it could be possible for the store to open sometime this year. Abunaw speculates that it will take about six months for construction once permits are approved.

Setting Up Shop

Food pantries play an essential role in addressing emergency access to food. But ultimately, neighborhoods need grocery stores so people can have consistent access to fresh produce and other food. That means something other than corner stores that emphasize the sale of liquor and lottery tickets, where there might be an onion and a rotting tomato for sale, says Austin Eats member Liz Abunaw.

“I wouldn't buy produce out here. It smells bad here. I think the smell of weed knocked me over when I first came in to one store,” Abunaw says.

Abunaw owns Forty Acres Fresh Market, which is a fresh produce delivery service, and she is working on opening a brickand-mortar grocery store in Austin under the same name in a former Salvation Army store at 5713 W. Chicago Ave. She was awarded over $20,000 through Austin Eats, which helped her secure a $2.5 million grant from the City of Chicago Neighborhood Opportunity Fund.

“You can't solve [food deserts] with groceries and it shouldn't be solved by grocery retail. But grocery retail is a big piece of it because grocery retail is structural. And it's far more than food. It's jobs. It's neighborhood infrastructure. It is neighborhood walkability. Grocery stores tend to be anchors,” Abunaw said.

They also keep money in the neighborhood. Currently, many Austin residents drive to nearby Oak Park to shop at its many well-stocked supermarkets. That’s inconvenient for shoppers and siphons dollars out of Austin.

“It's important that we really invest in these local initiatives because there's competition. A lot of the competition around food is coming from Oak Park,” Ramsay said. “That’s a dynamic we have to be cognizant of.”

But Abunaw faces challenges in creating her store, from permits to budgets and redesigns. She still doesn’t have a date when construction will start. “I would say however much you think it's going to cost, triple it,” Abunaw says. “However long you think it's going to take, just don't estimate a timeline.” She previously managed the Austin Town Hall City Market, a weekly outdoor food market where local vendors sell produce and other food during the summer.

A youth-led fresh produce store, Austin Harvest, will be opening this spring at 423 N. Laramie, providing fresh produce and groceries in Austin year-round. Austin Harvest, which started as a pop-up market in the summer of 2020, is led by high-school students from By the Hand Club for Kids. In the summer of 2020, they gave out 75,000 pounds of fresh food, which was provided by the Greater Chicago Food Depository and funded by Chicago’s COVID-19 Racial Equity Response Program.

Designed to last for one season, it was able to continue due to high demand and funding from Austin Eats.

(Photos by Michelle Meyer)

Tilling the Soil

Community gardens can play a unique role in neighborhoods like Austin, providing not only food but also camaraderie among gardeners.

Austin Eats supports 24 community gardens in the neighborhood. “These are really spaces that are used to serve the community in a number of ways beyond just planting vegetables and harvesting them,” says Cindy Schneider of Austin Garden Collective. They host events, like summer cookouts and pop-up food pantries. One garden, Harambee Community Garden, is using Austin Eats funding to install a pizza oven so it can host pizza parties.

Schneider said their biggest challenge is securing enough volunteers to work in the gardens each week during the summer season. “We really want to involve as many community members that live near each garden as possible,” Schneider says. “I mean, outside groups coming in for a day is great, but it's not as long-term sustainable as when you can get people who live close by you.”

Still, the gardens have brought people together and brought food to the neighborhood, along with awareness of how to grow and prepare fresh produce.

Money and Marketing

Grants are essential in Austin Eats’ work to make this food desert green. Much of the funding for Austin Eats comes from foundation support. Also important is getting the word out, which has been a challenge during the pandemic. Austin Eats spent $20,000 on marketing efforts in 2021 to increase community awareness.

“There's always improvement for communication [and] knowledge about what exists,” Ramsay says.

The goal is to set in place long-term improvements in food access in Austin, not just quick fixes. As a result, progress may not be immediately obvious on a large scale. “That's something that I really appreciate about our processes,” Ramsay says. “We're not just go, go, go. Just plan and then go, go, go. We're constantly planning.”

That planning includes welcoming a variety of stakeholders, including residents and businesses, to share their needs and ideas. Only then can a problem as long-standing and deeply rooted as food scarcity be addressed.

“Strategize together; understand how people are approaching the work,” Ramsay says. “Because it can lead to fruitful collaborations.”

Left: The Harambee Gardens.

Below: The Harambee Gardens sign; The Paradise Gardens sign.. The construction site Austin Harvest (All photos by Michelle Meyer).

Shuttered wadsworth school in Woodlawn temporary housing for migrant asylum

by Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP)

Editor's Note: The Chicago Department of Family and Support Services has announced that it would begin on January 23 moving 250 migrant asylum seekers into the former Wadsworth School, (later a University of Chicago Charter School) at 6420 S. University Ave., where they will remain for up to two years.

CBS2 reported after a January 12 meeting that Woodlawn residents were not anti-migrant, but rather, they were upset that they had not been included in plans from the beginning. They were also concerned about safety issues, which were addressed at the meeting. CBS2 learned about the plan Oct., 24, 2022, but the Mayor’s Office denied it the next day. CBS2 later found a $1.5 million record for environmental, plumbing and other rehab at the school, before its use as an asylum shelter was confirmed in December.

Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) issued the following statement January 13 in an email to media and on its website. https://www.stopchicago.org/news/wadsworth

Recent weeks have been full of confusion for Woodlawn neighbors as Mayor Lightfoot announced, with little notice and no community input, that Wadsworth Elementary—a school closed under Rahm Emanuel—would be converted into a refuge for asylum seekers. These asylum seekers are being sent to Chicago from the U.S./Mexico border in a racist move by Texas governor Greg Abbott. As members of Southside Together Organizing for Power (STOP) and as Woodlawn residents, we clearly see these maneuvers as attempts to pit local Black residents and immigrant communities against one another. This creates the illusion that our dire need for resources is in competition with one another, and distracts us from who is really pulling the strings.

STOP supports asylum seekers, and all those in need of shelter to our neighborhood. Support for asylum seekers requires a more orderly municipal response that includes transparency, community input, resources, and safe and decent facilities. We also recognize that Mayor Lightfoot’s move to convert a closed school into a refuge shelter, after years of local residents demanding it be transformed into something that benefits the community, is a slap in many of our faces. It proves that Mayor Lightfoot has the resources to house, feed, and care for all of Chicago’s residents, but only gives them out when it is politically beneficial, and even then only for the short-term. We want to see investments made into Wadsworth and the larger Woodlawn area that build social safety and economic stability for all our residents for the long haul.

We are concerned about the safety and long term liveability of our neighborhood, but we know the problem is not new residents arriving. The problem is the Mayor’s continuous disinvestment from the South and West Sides, from Black, brown, immigrant, and poor neighborhoods all over Chicago. We also know that safety doesn't come from keeping people out, but from bringing resources in.

We demand #SanctuaryForAll, for Woodlawn residents new and old, immigrant and non-immigrant alike, particularly in this moment of heightened need. Right now we are demanding what we have been demanding: economic development and job training, free and affordable housing, the re-opening of our mental health clinics, well-funded community schools,

Woodlawn to become asylum seekers Op-ed

after-school programs, and other meaningful investments in the Woodlawn community that build real safety and stability well beyond this moment of crisis. As the Mayor invests $1.5 million into the rehab of Wadsworth Elementary, we demand that this investment be the start of turning the space into a community resource that can be used after the asylum seekers leave.

We will not be used as political pawns, and we will not see the same done to our allies seeking asylum. There are more than enough resources to support and protect all Chicagoans, but they will only be made available when we demand them together, united.

StreetWise exists to elevate marginalized voices and provide opportunities for individuals to earn an income and gain employment. Anyone who wants to work has the opportunity to move themselves out of crisis.

StreetWise provides “a hand up, not a handout.”

All vendors go through an orientation focusing on their rights and responsibilities as a StreetWise Magazine Vendor. Authorized vendors have badges with their name, picture and current year.

magazine for $1.15 and sell it for $3 plus tips. The vendor keeps all of their earnings.

New vendor orientation is every Tuesday and Thursday at 10:00 a.m. at 2009 S. State St. Find your nearest vendor at www.streetwise.org