Dear 33rd Ward Community,  Yesterday was the Spring Equinox and officially the first day of spring! The sun is with us for longer and longer each day, and I and my staff hope this extra sunlight is providing you all with extra energy and inspiration to reconnect with friends and the community. We can’t wait to see our neighborhoods slowly come out of winter hibernation with block parties, festivals, and games in the parks and playgrounds.  I wanted to highlight a variety of upcoming events from my office and neighborhood organizations in the spirit of reconnecting with nature and community. Continue

Dear 33rd Ward Community,  This week I and my staff have been hard at work supporting the responses to the measles outbreak in the city’s Halsted migrant and refugee shelter. As children and families are expected to quarantine within the shelter during this period of monitoring the extent of the outbreak, we partnered with neighboring government offices for a toy collection drive to bring to families in the shelter. I and my staff also spent time with other city staff helping to facilitate vaccinations in the shelter and offering community care. In the meantime, we have been receiving information fromContinue

Dear 33rd Ward Community,  Happy International Women’s Day! For the month of March we recognize the impact that women and femme-identifying people have had on our lives and the tremendous efforts they have made to build the society we live in today. Women’s History Month grew out of the tradition of International Women’s Day, which was first recognized in New York City in 1909, known as “Women’s Day.” This celebration inspired the International Women’s Congress to designate an honorary day each year starting in 1911. We know there is far too much to celebrate in one day, so the dayContinue

Dear 33rd Ward Community,  My Committee on Health and Human Relations met on Wednesday to hold a subject matter hearing on the Treatment Not Trauma Working Group, which was established by ordinance in October of 2023. The Working Group is a stepping stone toward creating a multi-year plan for the City of Chicago to invest in making the vision of Treatment Not Trauma a reality. The working group has been meeting regularly over the past few months to gather input, stories, and experiences from Chicagoans, to put community experts and researchers in conversation with city departments, and to begin draftingContinue

Dear 33rd Ward Community,  A lot happened this week! On Wednesday evening my office hosted a community meeting to learn from neighborhood leaders with Sierra Club of Illinois and Citizens Utility Board. At the meeting, we were given a presentation related to assistance programs available to help our neighbors transition their homes to electric appliances, as well as explanations about ways to heat our homes using sustainable energy. You can view the presentation by clicking here and learn more about a popular form of sustainable energy called “heat pumps” by clicking here. One of the main concerns we heard fromContinue

Dear 33rd Ward Community,  Today was the final day to submit your votes for our Participatory Budget ballot this year. We will be following up soon with the results from the vote. Thank you to everyone that participated in the PB process this year. This includes neighbors that submitted ideas, the committee of community members and students that worked over many months to develop our ballot, and all of the volunteers across the ward that worked so hard over the past month to get out the vote! We canvassed the neighborhood, held pop-up voting events at neighborhood schools, attending eventsContinue

Dear 33rd Ward Community,  I am so proud to have groups of young people working together to organize in their community to provide resources and other forms of support to their neighbors. Last weekend we participated in a youth-led event called Friends of the Community, hosted by the North River Commission’s Youth Council at Roosevelt High School. Tomorrow we will be participating in a Healing Village at Roosevelt High School. A healing village is organized to fill in the gaps in our community’s access to vital mental and physical healthcare. The event will consist of talking circles and healing workshopsContinue

Dear 33rd Ward Community,  Yesterday marked the beginning of Black History Month. The recognition of Black and African American people's contributions to United States and world history in the month of February began nearly 100 years ago. Carter Woodson and the Association for the Study of Negro Life and History (ASNLH) started "Negro History Week" in 1926, to recognize the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln and Frederick Douglass during the secondweek of February. The celebration of these two leaders and their contributions to the history of black liberation struggles in the United States had been honored by the Black community sinceContinue

Dear 33rd Ward Community,  It is very important to me that my office has always been a place where we bring community into the decision-making process every step of the way. This is why projects like Participatory Budgeting (PB) form such a large part of the work that we do alongside our neighbors. Over the years, our Participatory Budgeting programming has been a way to bring youth into the civic process of voting. Each year this project brings together thousands of ward residents to decide how $1 million dollars for local infrastructure should be spent. Our ballot for 2024 PBContinue