Community Coalition Meeting and Walk as One Event

[UPDATE: Local coverage and video segments of yesterday's Walk as One event are available here from WCCU and two segments here from WCIA. The News-Gazette also had an article covering the walk here.]

Tomorrow Wednesday May 15th, the Champaign Community Coalition will be having a Walk as One event (WILL coverage) in the 'North End' to connect people with their neighbors and information. Here are two of the information cards for the event. The first one is for folks who want to volunteer and participate and the other is information for residents in the neighborhood (click to enlarge):

Last week's Community Coalition Meeting also announced a new location for future meetings. From the News-Gazette coverage:

Parsons also announced that this year's Walk as One event, which promotes peace and community resiliency, is set for 5 to 7 p.m. Wednesday, May 15 at Salem Baptist Church in Champaign. This will be a door-knocking initiative to hand out information to the north end neighborhood about the city's summer community programs and crisis-response efforts for gun violence.

And after three years at the library, the coalition will again move its meetings. The regular gatherings will now take place from 3:30 to 5 p.m. on the second Wednesday of every month at the Holiday Inn, 101 Trade Center Drive, C.

More at the full article here. The full article describes in detail plans towards community forums within 36 hours of a gun violence incident to connect the community affected with resources (a post on the first of these forums here). The aim is interrupt the cycle of trauma and violence. It's also to react almost as if to a natural disaster, to ensure the community has the tools and resources to deal with the fallout of these events.


More from the meeting...

Police Chief Updates: This week is Police Memorial Week and there will be an event for local departments at West Side Park at 11:15am on Friday May 17th.

Shooting incidents involving multiple shooters (with multiple types of bullet casings at scene) occurred in both Champaign and Urbana. The chiefs laid out their reports of shootings, including some with injuries and at least two homicides at the time of the meeting. Since the meeting a 14 year old was also killed: more on that in today's paper here. The campus police for Parkland and the University of Illinois are expecting things to slow down some as students leave in their areas. U of I police reminded folks of the Youth Leadership Camp coming up again.


The Champaign Park District had an announcement for their Summer Neighborhood Block Parties program with the latest dates and locations at the link.

Among the other program updates was an announcement that Urbana would be starting a pilot program modeled after the Unit 4 "Goal Getter" program. More information that from WCCU:

After seeing the success of Champaign's Goal Getters Program, community activists in Urbana decided to create a similar blueprint, for what they will be calling, The Urbana Youth High School Program.

The program will focus on students who have struggled socially and academically.

The program is expected to begin in June, which will include 16 sessions over the summer and will run through the school year as well.

Full blurb with video segment here. The project was pending final approval, although I'm not sure if that will be coming from the City of Urbana or the District 116 school board at this point (perhaps both?). More on the announcement to the Urbana City Council from the News-Gazette a week ago here.

There were some updates on the progress of the iRead/iCount program through the United Way. They're going to be looking for volunteers who can give an hour a week to help with basic reading skills, including improving letter recognition. More information available at this WCIA interview from January here. Flyer (click to enlarge):

Bend the Arc had a presentation on white nationalism locally, including active white nationalist groups in the area. They are going to have an event later this month on the subject. I'll post an update with that information when available.

Mothers Demand Action had information about their Wear Orange event working with Truce and the Champaign Park District next month: Saturday, June 8th 2-5pm Douglass Park at 512 E Grove St, Champaign, IL 61820.

The meeting ran low on time at the end and a couple of the hurried presenters were invited back to a future meeting:

• The Money Mentors program at the University of Illinois Extension
• Community Data: Mixed Methods for Community Centered Design which appeared to focus on how algorithms by various entities we interact with could be reinforcing previous problems (e.g. feedback loops of red lined neighborhoods causing discriminatory results in your Amazon purchases)

There was also information about the Leadership Development Academy's 4 week summer program (click to enlarge flyer):

There was more, including an overview of the "Embracing Your Past" event last month. A post on that will be coming up after a little more research.