Potluck Meeting Recap

On Oct. 25, we had a Potluck meeting in Nick's apartment to learn more about the Chicago area. It is incredibly important to know about the Chicago culture and poverty levels before we go there in March because we need to understand what we are jumping into. If someone traveled to College Park for a service trip, I think we would all agree we would want them to know the basics about the city before performing service. 

To do this, we watched Hardball and discussed how the characters' experiences are similar to what we will encounter in Chicago. Here is the movie's trailer:

Some similarities we found are:

• Food deserts 
• Defined: an area where there isn't grocery stores or farmer's markets to get fresh fruit and vegetables, instead there are corner stores with cheap junk food. 
• Alcohol 
• Keanu Reeves' character drinks a lot in the movie and is struggling with poverty. This is a main reason why there is a no alcohol/drug policy on our trip - it would not be good to go to service hungover when the people we are helping may be struggling with alcoholism. 
• The projects
• Defined: public housing owned by the government for low-income people to rent. 
• Cabrini Green, the project where the characters lived, was shut down in March 2011.

*We will explore public housing more in our "Poverty 101" meeting.

General facts about Chicago:

• The Chicago River, which runs through the city, flows backwards and is dyed green on St. Patrick's Day. 
• The Willis Tower (formally the Sears Tower) is the tallest building in the Western Hemisphere. 
• The city has a lot of neighborhoods with different cultures.

Famous Attractions:

• Millennium Park (where the Bean) is located
• Navy Pier
• Skydeck Chicago's The Ledge (at the Willis Tower)
• Chicago Cultural Center