Saturday, July 26th, we hosted our 3rd annual Summer Bash. This year, we partnered with Voice of the People, another non-profit based in Uptown. We also added a “Back to School” theme, and Voice of the People passed out over 200 backpacks of school supplies! With over 500 total attendees, this was our biggest summer celebration ever. We created a block party-style celebration with music, food, games, resources, and prizes. We can truly feel the love in our community through this event, and we know it’s one that many of our members look forward to every year.
While we love our work of building people power to fight injustice and create thriving communities, that can be really hard work! It’s important to take time to have fun and find the joy in our communities too. We love that the annual Summer Bash lets folks have fun, enjoy our beautiful neighborhoods, and create meaningful connections. We always enjoy meeting with new community members, hanging out with our members and grassroots leaders, and helping build bridges between neighbors across the North Side! A lot more unites us than divides us, and there’s nothing like food, music, and games on a beautiful sunny day to show that.
This year, the event took place at Sunnyside Mall in Uptown. Beyond providing us with the space for our Back to School Summer Bash, they kicked off our event with their volunteers grilling for our community members to enjoy. Up and down the Sunnyside Mall pavement, ONE Northside offered different activities for attendees to enjoy and take part in. As people entered the event, we handed them a small “stamp book” to guide their time with us. For the duration of this gathering, many attendees decided to participate in our stamp book activity. If they completed at least six activities, they could turn in their stamp book to spin a prize wheel to win a prize!
Everyone in attendance could stop to learn about our Parent Mentors and Violence Prevention Program. Our organizing teams prepared activities to engage community members in their campaigns, like a voting activity hosted by the Illinois Climate Bank organizing team where folks indicated which green projects they most wanted to see in their community. Other booths hosted by organizing teams included our Housing Justice team, Green Schools, Budgets & Revenues, Building Safe Communities, and our ongoing community survey which will help us determine our future issue campaigns. Many community members stopped to share their thoughts on the survey! At another booth, folks could learn how to become a Member of ONE Northside.
With each table’s activity ranging from our Housing Justice Team’s “Pin the Eviction Notice on the Corporate Landlord” to the Environmental Justice team’s bucket toss game teaching parents and students about Green Schools, participants could collect their 6 stamps after engaging with our staff. To top the fun, people could then stop at our prize table to spin our prize wheel! With the generosity of our sponsors, we were able to offer local gift cards, t-shirts, books, and other cool prizes!
Voice of the People gave away over 200 backpacks with school supplies and offered free diapers to parents in our communities. At our “Community Corner,” attendees could stop to connect with our Table Partners. Folks were able to learn about the work and resources offered by Thresholds, Tapestry 360, Uptown Peoples Law Center, Indo American Center, Northside Community Development Corporation, and Vietnamese Association of Illinois. ONE People’s Campaign had a table registering new voters. We had free haircuts provided by the ONE Northside Violence Prevention team and free Zumba led by our Parent Mentors! Fun conversations and connections were happening all across our event!
This year marked a new milestone for us, as we reached more people than ever. A huge thank you to our co-host, Voice of the People, everyone who came out, all of our incredible volunteers, and our community partners who made the day possible. We hope to continue building space for our community to come together, celebrate, and uplift one another.
Special shoutout to Uptown Deli Chicago for coming through with the snacks, and Sunnyside Mall for generously providing us with the space for our event and grilling! Shoutout to Haymarket Books and Target for their contributions! We want to thank Old National Bank, Broadway Bikes, and all of Table Partners for their impactful donations. Lastly, thank you to First Ascent Climbing, Studio Us Chicago, Fit City Kids, Breakfast House Chicago, and Raising Cane’s for providing prizes for our giveaways! Thank you to Ronit Bezalel Photography for our amazing photos!
by Arlette Correa
Notifications
