Mondays with Mike: What about Chicago?

We visited some friends in Urbana the week before last—at some point, as we talked about our home town and its problems, one asked, “Do you know people who have actually moved away?”

We do.

It started with a liquor store….

One couple left after the second round of looting last summer. Two other couples probably were on their way out anyway—they’re both planning for a second child and there really aren’t a lot of units in our hood with more than two smallish bedrooms. For others who might have been contemplating a move, this last year’s troubles simply overcame inertia—and they left.

The city is coming back. We’ve been to live music, and we look forward to live theater—those two things are sustaining and we missed them terribly.

But the problems aren’t going away. It’s not easy reading about shooting deaths every day, and it’s flat out scary sometimes. I’ll confess, this last year did have me thinking, for the first time since we moved here in 2003, about moving elsewhere.

It can feel like moving is the only thing we can do. But I was reminded last week that it’s not—by of all people, sports talk hosts at WSCR am, our local all-sports, all the time radio station.

Here’s how it came to be. Sam Acho is a former Chicago Bears player who helped found Athletes for Justice. I’ve heard him talk about the organization many times and he’s an absolute prince and Athletes for Justice does marvelous work in Chicagoland.

One project began last year after last summer’s looting left a former liquor store hollowed out and out of business. The organization raised funds to buy it and make it a popup store for fresh, healthy foods. The store’s called Austin Harvest, named for its West Side neighborhood. Austin is a community that suffers for a lot of reasons, including the fact that it’s in a vast food desert.

The store is operated by a local organization called By the Hand, a club for local kids. Austin Harvest didn’t just bring fresh, health food to Austin—it employs and trains local kids.

When the sports station people heard that Acho and his org wanted  to help build a permanent grocery store there, one of the hosts-Danny Parkins—suggested an old-fashioned 24-hour radiothon to raise money for the effort. Parkins stayed up and on the air for 24 straight hours. Of course, he had help—guest interviews with people involved with the project, prerecorded interviews with kids who work at the store and local residents. No sports, just a lot of inspiration.

He called it the “What about Chicago?” Radiothon as a sort of FU to the people who ask that question in the wrong spirit.

And it raised, at last count, over $700,000.

Of course, they’ll need still more—but it’s a helluva start.

You can donate to the effort via WSCR’s site.

Or go to Athletes for Justice.

And you can support all the programs By the Hand operates.

I hope you will.

It’s been a tough year for my city, but I want to see Chicago roar back to life. And to tell the truth, when it comes down to it, I just can’t imagine being anywhere else.