Local community heroes among those
honored by NCP
By Ivette Sandoval
The Local Initiatives Support Corp./Chicago’s New Communities Program recognized 28 community heroes during the Getting it Done: New Tools for Communities conference, which highlighted the program’s accomplishments.
Those honored came from 16 communities, including several in this area.
The New Communities Program (NCP) mission is to create longterm initiatives, support community development, and rejuvenate challenged communities. During the conference, Earnest Gates, NCP director for the West Haven neighborhood and executive director of the Near West Side Development Corp., gave the keynote speech and facilitated a workshop on techniques for attracting resources to build communities. “It’s how you use relationships to leverage other things on behalf of the neighborhood and how to use leverage to get what you want,” he explained. About the community heroes awards ceremony, he said, “I think it’s a great opportunity to recognize the many unsung heroes in our community.
It’s a way of just saying
thanks.”
One community hero, Keith Jackson of West Haven, has been a community
organizer for the Chicago Area Project for more than 25 years and is
president of the Chicago Institute for Community Organizing. He teaches
people how to become better leaders, organize in their communities, and
address problems that arise.
Community organizing “is
one of the few things that does work,” Jackson said. “It spreads and
empowers democracy in the most fundamental way. We talk about crime and
unemployment to help people stay in their own agendas and empower for
themselves.”Crystal Palmer, a community hero also from West Haven, was honored for her work as a case manager at the Near West Side Community Development Corp. serving as a liaison between public housing residents and the Chicago Housing Authority and other agencies. She describes herself as someone who helps people and “makes miracles happen” when people are in danger of losing their homes.
“We have people who come to this office, broken people, crying, thinking it’s the last day of their lives,” Palmer explained. “Once they leave, they’re put together. We give them the resources that they need.”
For her, the award offers proof people think she does a good job serving the community and that her efforts are not in vain. “What I do is from the heart, and there’s no monetary value,” she said.
Oscar Torres and Martha Monroy of Pilsen also took home community hero awards. Torres grew up in Pilsen and helps his neighbors by taking them downtown to get City services. As a volunteer at the Resurrection Project, he coaches the organization’s basketball league and lends a hand wherever needed. He also volunteers at St. Ann’s Parish and mentors at-risk gang kids at St. Pius Church.
“I always tell people that I grew up here, it’s predominantly Hispanic, but although all my friends moved out, I stayed through the hard times,” Torres said. “This neighborhood has shaped the person that I am today. I enjoy being in this community.”
Of his award, he said, “I am happy that I got this, but I think there’s so many other people who deserve it as well.”
Education Summit
Martha Monroy is principal
of the Cooper Dual Language Academy in Pilsen, where she has increased the
students’ overall academic achievement. She serves on the Pilsen Education
Taskforce and co-chairs the Pilsen Neighbors Community Council, which brings
together organizations, schools, and elected officials to focus on education
issues. She was instrumental in organizing the first Pilsen Education
Summit, which presented resources for parents and attracted many education
leaders committed to early childhood education.
“It takes a village to raise a child, and that’s what this task force is about—everyone pitching in for the neighborhood children,” she said. Concerning her award, she said, “I was surprised and honored. It’s always nice to be recognized, but it’s a team effort. I accepted on behalf of everyone who works together as a task force.”
Strategic Effort
CeaseFire is a strategic
public health effort to reverse the city’s violence epidemic by using
trained street outreach staff, public education campaigns, and community
mobilization. It is an initiative of the Chicago Project for Violence
Prevention based at the University of Illinois at Chicago’s School for
Public Health. The NCP recognized the organization’s work with a
Community Hero award for the Chicago Southwest CeaseFire team: Rafi
Peterson, Miguel Arcoa, Kenneth Baldwin, Mima Guzman, Rick Hernandez,
and Hugo Siguenza. In the team’s work area, shootings have fallen 67% in
the six years since they began their efforts.To view the full list of NCP Community Heroes, visit www.newcommunities.org or call (312) 697-6455.
