North Lawndale Heroes:
Caring People Outreach, Dr. Betty Green

• November 17, 2009

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What a neighborhood can be is largely a function of what its residents and the people who work there do. On a day-to-day basis, their actions – organizing block clubs, mentoring the children of incarcerated parents, providing shelter to homeless people, tending a neighbor’s garden – may not be heroic in the popular sense.

But those actions, and countless others like them, are what make a place what it is. And the people – the community heroes – saluted by the New Communities Program lead agencies and their partners are the ones doing the heavy lifting, often with little acknowledgement or reward.

The community heroes for North Lawndale are Caring People Outreach and Dr. Betty Green. Congratulations to them and all of the other community heroes for their commitment to improving Chicago neighborhoods.

Caring People Outreach

As president of the 1600-1800 Central Park Block Club in North Lawndale, Lonnie Williams and her fellow officers spent a lot of time working with neighborhood youth, taking them on fishing trips through CAPS, to movie night at the 10^th district police station, and on field trips throughout the city. The kids liked the entertainment, but they also wanted jobs.

So Williams et al set about finding them gigs shoveling snow, cutting grass and cleaning up vacant lots – tasks that introduced young people to the responsibilities and requirements that come with work. Those efforts were the catalyst for the creation of Caring People Outreach, which through volunteers works to employ young people and improve the condition of North Lawndale streets and properties.

“They’ve provided block club training, jobs for youth, started a lawn care and snow removal company, and continue to clean up the neighborhood whenever possible,” said Tracie Worthy, the NCP director at Lawndale Christian Development Corporation. “They are examples of individuals who see a problem and instead of waiting for someone else to do something about it, they take care of it themselves.”

Williams’ motivation for working with youth is simple. “When I was coming up, someone was helping me,” she said. “Now it’s time to reach out and support them.”

Dr. Betty Green
Shortly before retiring as principal at Herzl Elementary School in North Lawndale, Betty Green visited the Cook County Jail through the prison ministry program at her church. “The first person I saw there was the parent of one of my students,” she said. “When I got back to school, I bonded with that child and understood why he was having problems. From that moment I realized we needed a program in North Lawndale to help such children.”

Within a year of retiring in 2007, Green established LAMP, the Lawndale Amachi Mentoring Program, which provides mentors for children whose parents are incarcerated.

With help from the Steans Family Foundation, AmeriCorps volunteers, and volunteers like herself, Green set about connecting needy students with qualified volunteer mentors – recruited from churches, schools, the fire department, the police department, university faculty and students and others – who spend an hour every week with a student for a year. So far, she’s matched 92 students with mentors and has another 54 kids on a waiting list.

What do the mentors do? “First of all, they listen to them,” said Green. “They talk to them, take them to libraries, zoos, to lunch, help them do homework. It’s agreed upon between them.”

The hope of the Amachi mentoring approach (a national effort started in Philadelphia) is that one-to-one mentoring by caring adults will significantly improve the life opportunities of the children.

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