Episode Transcript
Speaker 1 00:00:02 Hi, I'm ey. So from Rethink Health, a Ripple Foundation Initiative, and we're hosting a new podcast series called Unsung Stewards. Yours are people like you that are taking responsibility to tackle the big question of our time. Why do we create conditions so that all of us, everyone can thrive? You're not alone And wondering, can we break from business as usual in practical ways? Can we lead our communities and institutions to think and act in ways that will actually make a difference? In this series, you'll hear human stories about real people in real places who are taking on these questions. In this turbulent season we find ourselves in today, we are talking to three stewards in Maywood, Illinois. Randy McFarland from the best of Proviso Township, Chris Chambliss from the Nehemiah Community Project. Lena Hatchet from Loyola University, and Proviso Partners for Health. While Randy, Chris, and Lena may not formally work together, they are connected by their friendship and love for one another. They are also modern day vanguards, and their efforts respect the legacy of the Black Panthers by building community resilience through collective action. In Maywood, when Covid 19 hit the village of Maywood, their friendships and the legacy of the Panthers were activated to address food insecurity, mental health, and other needs exacerbated by the pandemic. Their relationships have also led to unconventional collaborations between community residents and Loyola Medicine, the large local hospital.
Speaker 1 00:01:50 What's the original story for how the three of you met? And I wanna start with you, Randy, because you serve as kind of a bridge between both Chris and Lena.
Speaker 2 00:01:58 First, I was born and raised in Maywood, Illinois. Chris was born and raised in Maywood, Illinois. Also, we actually went to, um, different grade schools. Chris is a year younger than I. Um, my team used to beat the heck out of his basketball team, so that's about the extent of our childhood. Um, once I graduated from grade school and went to high school, um, I never saw Chris again until probably our, my sophomore year of college. Uh, first year of my first year of my sophomore year of college, uh, walk into practice. And there he was the, the new freshman on campus. So, um, he was my teammate in college. We, we formed a bond. And then after college, you know, life happened, you know, like I started working full-time. Chris, uh, got married, had, um, had his family. And, uh, we, we kinda, um, we lost contact for, uh, quite a long time.
Speaker 2 00:02:53 And then somehow, I don't remember how we got back in contact, but Chris and the majority of all my college teammates, we got back in contact with each other and we realized, you know, we like brothers, me and Chris had a passion for our community, the hometown that we grew up in. Um, so when we came back together, I was already volunteering in a community. Chris had already had, um, a heart for the community, so we decided to work together. Um, we establish a, a foundation called Best of Proviso Township. And, uh, we decided to be impactful in our community. Now with Lena, Lena works for, uh, the local hospital, Layola Hospital. Um, Lena, um, has a real nurturing and, and empathetic, um, heart for the village of Maywood. Anybody who has an empathetic heart towards the village of Maywood is a friend of mines.
Speaker 2 00:03:43 Uh, I met Lena at her, um, farmer's Market. She used to host Farmer's Market on the grounds of our local library. It was really important to her and her organization provides a partnership for health to, um, to ensure that the community, um, um, eradicated being a, a, a, a food desert. You know, majority of the community, majority of residents in our community, you know, ate fast food and didn't have vegetable, fresh fruits and vegetables. And Lena and her, her, um, farmer's Market, they was there every, I think every Saturday or once a month. And, um, that's how we met. You know, I heard about her, but when I met her, um, she lived up to everything I heard about her, um, warmhearted woman, um, courageous. And, um, that's how we met. And, um, recently due to what's been going on in our community in regards to Coronavirus, um, my org, our organization Best provides Township, have many allies. Um, and we believe in making sure that our allies, um, know each other. So I knew that it was important for me to introduce Chris and Lena also, because they both have not only empathy towards our health, physically, internally, but also mentally. So I knew they would be able to connect on that level.
Speaker 3 00:04:58 So my father was a local businessman in the community of Maywood. Uh, prior to pastoring, he owned a grocery store in the sixties, late sixties. And he also owned a fish market simultaneously at the same time. So my mother would be at the grocery store, my father would be at the fish market. And he also had a, um, a full-time job with, um, an international company, uh, at the time. And so he left the international company, uh, ran his business for a few years, and then he got called to ministry. And so ministry pretty much really is just kind of community. It's all it is. It's just people in the community coming to a place to really kind of just kind of worship together with the background. I discovered, uh, early on in my childhood that there was a portion, uh, out of the book that I read, right, that, that I really kind of anchored my company in.
Speaker 3 00:05:49 And it comes out of the book of Nehemiah, which is 2, 17, 18, and 19. And it talks about really just what we are doing here today is, um, there is a need in the community, right? And then why don't we come together, right? To meet this need. And then, so the response of the people were, let's do it. Mm-hmm. <affirmative>, right? And so it was easy for me to, um, you know, work with Randy and to meet Alina and to come and, uh, go arm and arm in this community. And so we're like-minded individuals. So it's not a task. It's more of a pleasure. And so, so the basis of our togetherness is relationship. It's rooted in relationship. We value relationship. We value and respect one another. And so, um, us coming to the space and being in space, uh, it's something that, uh, Randy had said that, you know, we're vanguards in our community.
Speaker 4 00:06:41 When I arrived in Maywood, I didn't know Chicago, and I didn't know the history or the people of Maywood, but I started to see similarities between Maywood, Illinois and the town I grew up in, uh, which has taught them in North London. And there were so many similarities of community level poverty. Uh, my neighborhood, I was one of four kids to go to college, and we didn't even talk about college or jobs or career. Every day was just, uh, a struggle. Um, we, we have food, but not enough of it. Um, we, we didn't have transportation. And, uh, you know, I thought my goal was to get out and away from community poverty, but I ended up realizing that I could be a factor to change community poverty. I had insight and knowhow, and my work, uh, creates policies and systems that I didn't have growing up. And I kind of really resonate with that, that journey, uh, of Tots and Maywood and the world. And these are communities all over that have been marginalized. You know, we call it a bad community. We say it's high crime, like something's wrong with the neighborhood when it was a decision to segregate and marginalize and create the poverty that we have in Maywood. So I'm really drawn to this work based on my own journey of growing up in Cotton.
Speaker 1 00:08:22 You know, just to pick up on this theme around when, when I think of the three of you, I, I know that you all are doing some great collective work together, but, but you mentioned the word relationship, Chris, and, and, and friendship. And I think, um, you know, it's really interesting because one of the things that, you know, it's so obvious, you know, stewardship doesn't always happen in these extremely formalized settings, in context. Um, in fact, I was talking to a, a fellow co-organizer, co-organizer of mine, and we were really just reflecting on the role of friendships. And, and, um, they're at the core of every kind of social movement and collective action, if you think about it. They, they sort of form this magical likeer of sustainable movement work. You know, I'm just curious cause that seems to be a really ripe theme from, from your different stories. You all have different journeys. There's some parallels to them, but, but what really is connecting you all is, is your friendship and, and kind of love for one another. And, um, just curious if, if any reactions to that.
Speaker 3 00:09:15 For me, I saw it modeled, uh, my father being a local, uh, pastor in the Maywood area. And so really, when we come together, whether it's worship, whether it's a night of bingo, it's based on relationship.
Speaker 2 00:09:28 We can handle the business. But I love us being able to come together, have a great time, and still be impactful. So, um, that makes others want to come back more and more. Otherwise, you're gonna lose people who want to be involved because they don't wanna be, they, they say, Hey, I can deal with this at, at home or deal with this at work.
Speaker 4 00:09:46 Randy is, is a phenomenal vanguard in the community. Uh, I, when I arrived, uh, not knowing Chicago, not knowing Maywood and not knowing what to do about the poverty issues, like some people just work on food or they just work on, um, hypertension. And I had to figure out how I could make an impact and didn't know how. And I would come and call Randy and ask for help. Randy doesn't talk about what he's doing. He does it, and he's so well respected in the community because of his integrity and love, and that speaks volume. So I would connect with Randy to learn, ask advice, get an understanding of what should I be doing as a university and hospital? How can we be helpful? And he was willing to share that. And to do this work, you need to have a sense of love for the community and the people that are in it. When it comes to institutions and community, there's titles and there's work, and there's roles and there's funding. All of those structural things are, are just pieces of it. If you don't have the person to person connection, um, of trust and integrity, none of those things can help you.
Speaker 1 00:11:08 I wanna shift into a time of storytelling. Um, you know, how did you respond to support, um, the residents of Maywood? When Covid 19 hit
Speaker 4 00:11:18 Overnight, we lost a year of funding with no preparation, no warning, and we were gonna lose all our staff and all the efforts that we'd already been investing in, which was delivering food to the most vulnerable. And I'm on a call just like this one, where you're sitting there and you don't know what the call is about, but you just can't imagine that you would lose all of your money overnight. And they said, sorry, COVID, we're gonna have to shut this down as of now. And you freeze. And I, I was speechless. I didn't talk. I just sat and was frozen. But luckily, our coalition is built on hope, possibility. And the other partners on that call texted me while we were still in the meeting, and it was a hospital partner. And they said, let's meet right away and see what we can do.
Speaker 4 00:12:19 And they pulled me out of that frozen place because we don't have the time, we don't have the luxury of being, uh, hopeless. And they were already mobilizing of what we could do collectively as a community to keep the work afloat before we got out of the meeting, to hear that we'd lost our funding, and we, we talked and we rallied. And, um, we leveraged each other's, uh, support to keep all our staff. Not only did we not stop work on food insecurity, we were able to mobilize to five times larger to reach families in need. And it's that mindset that the three of us have of resilience and, and, uh, supporting each other to get things done. And, um, PP four H has that, and Best of Proviso has that, and IMI has that. And, and, um, um, we, in less than six months, we had recruit, uh, those funds. We didn't lose, uh, any of our staff. Some of our part-time people, uh, said, put my money, don't pay me so that we can keep the full-time people who does that.
Speaker 2 00:13:32 Um, in the beginning, you remember, you go to the stores, the shells, the shells were empty. Like it was World War 20. I mean, um, it was, it was nerve-wracking for a lot of, lot of people who never been through something like that before. Never thought of the worst case scenario, especially for our seniors. The one thing that I definitely remember is our first food distribution. When January rolled around me personally, I already had the confidence in our, in our organization and our coalitions that we was going to be able to provide for the families. I know our, our township is grassroots. Our village of Maywood is grassroots found on grassroots. I knew there would be no donations, but when you see multiple food pantries closing down, because keep in mind, nobody was, um, nobody understood this coronavirus. So food pantries were being operated in a, in a manner where people had to actually go into the facilities to get their food.
Speaker 2 00:14:32 Nobody wanted to be indoors with, with tons of people. So lo and behold, the coalition that we belong to, the Provide Proviso Township Food and Resource Coalition, and that's us and multiple, um, churches and other non-for-profit, we decided to do the grab and go drive up. We have grocery bags waiting on you put it in your trunk, and then you take off, keep your social distance. Uh, I remember the first day that we had our first food distribution. Um, this young lady walked up to our food distribution and, um, she ended up telling one of our, um, volunteers that she had c she walked up. Now obviously everybody's a little nervous and everything, and our volunteer had to quarantine for 14 days, and she quarantined for 14 days. She has four children. In the beginning, there was a lot of, um, fear, a lot of unknow, and once some of us food distribution, some of the food distributions, um, stayed and got the resources to the communities. I think everybody, nerves started coming down. And then not only when we, when we was able to add food distribution, but then when we were able to finally add ppe, the mask, the hand sanitizers, you know, the toilet toiletries, you remember how toilet paper was, was like gold back then. Yeah. You know, I'm not gonna, I'm not superman or anything like that. I do, I was a little, I was a little nervous, um, because I'm un nobody can give us definitive answers by coronavirus.
Speaker 3 00:16:12 What was familiar to me and for me was those things that are not seen are mental health. Hmm. What was that looking like for our community? Right? So if I'm already struggling with anxiety, if I'm already struggling with depression, if I'm already struggling with these things now, it's now Covid is now compound. Uh, and even now still, you know, helping some of the young people that are still texting and calling and saying, Hey, I need to talk this thing out. I have friends, I have, you know, I'm tired of being indoors. I'm tired of, you know, e-learning, uh, you know, all these things that are very, very, very real that we didn't have answers for. While not being the expert, I just knew that it was important to be human.
Speaker 1 00:16:56 Yeah, I know that. That's beautiful. And so what I'm hearing is, you know, you all are kind of wearing different hats and playing different roles, but all kind of coming together and saying, how can I help? You know, Randy, you were really tactically focusing on the gown. Like, how can we do this safely? How can we continue to give food out and, and toiletries and pp during this time so that our community can continue to have food to eat? And Chris, you, you were thinking about the mental health piece and, and how do we actually, um, support one another during this very anxiety inducing time for all of us? Um, and then Lena kind of to thinking about the just what to do when a, when a funder pulls out that much money, like how do you continue to go on and, and how you all were in different places, problem solving together, but that allowed you to kind of keep the community Yeah. Continue serving the community. And, um, I guess my next question is, if any of you have a particular story about a specific person or a family, you don't have to say their name, but, but whose life you, you've touched in this time and that you've served as a result of your, your collaboration?
Speaker 2 00:17:57 There's, there's many, um, families that pop in my head, but there's this one, um, foster mom in the village of Maywood. She's a foster mom of six children. She's also battling breast cancer. We, uh, make sure that she have any resources they need, whether it's food or it's mask. Uh, she got a, one of her foster sons is kind of a, a little young hothead. So, um, I've kind of taken him under, um, my wing and mentor to him to try to help him understand of being more of an assistance to his foster mom than, than than battling her. Be more of an ally in your household. So, uh, helping her, um, to raise the children is not just helping her, but it's really helping our community. Because if we don't help her with those children, and let's say food become an issue, let's say, um, clothing become an issue, that's how the streets get to 'em.
Speaker 2 00:18:59 That's how the drug dealers get to 'em. So we got many battles that we are fighting, you know, about many, we battling many temptations. It's a game of seduction. So if I can seduce that young man to, to stay in school, don't drop out, stay focused, we'll take, Hey, we got food coming to you guys. Uh, we can help you get a, a part-time job or, or, um, don't worry about the clothes. We got donations coming. You know, like, but you do your part and then when you get older, you reach back. If we can do that, then, then, then it's all worth
Speaker 1 00:19:30 It. Wanted to, um, kind of zoom out a little bit from the individual stories and, um, Maywood, Illinois, you know, I, I, you know, what's important for us to understand about the historical, historical context of me would that that really shapes, you know, the approach that, that you take to your work.
Speaker 2 00:19:51 I can sit there, talk about Maywood all day long, so you better stop me, <laugh>. I mean, it's, it's, um, no matter where I go, um, or if I move to a different country, island, whatever, I'm always going to be, um, connected to ma to the village of Maywood. I, I'm not ashamed to confess my love and admiration for my community. As I got older and older, I realized how special my upbringing was, even though there were struggles. Uh, Maywood is a, is a grassroots community. During the underground Road era, there was a 10 mile home in the village Maywood. So the, the, um, the citizens of Maywood were involved with, um, the Underground Railroad. And there's a landmark that sits on the ground, uh, in Maywood. Um, it's a 10 mile home, which a 10 mile home was what enslave captives were, um, would stop off the rest off.
Speaker 2 00:20:49 At every 10 miles there was a house. So they nicknamed it a 10 mile house. So there was a 10 mile house in Maywood. So you take that, that grassroots, um, grittiness, and you take that to the civil rights era. Now you, now you gotta focus on one of our native sons. Um, the great Black Panther leader chairman Fred Hampton, born and raised in Maywood, um, um, an incredible, incredible life at that got snuffed out at a very young age, 21 years old. Um, I was, I was a year, a year and a half old when he got assassinated. Um, the things that he was able to do and the Black Panther was able to do in our community in regards to civil rights, that was a pivotal point because there was a lot of, lot of pushback from those may Woodys who was used to that make America great type of village.
Speaker 2 00:21:44 And once the African Americans stopped moving into the community and start getting power and start moving to different areas where they, they, they, they didn't feel they wanted to be confined. There was riots and there was, there was resistance. And the, the African Americans in Maywood said, we're not gonna take this anymore. We're not, we don't, we're not gonna allow ourselves to be stifled. So that's what I take from, um, as far as anything that we are doing now, is to take control of ourselves, our community, and push forward and not allow ourselves to be stifled. Now, during that era, there was a company called the American Can, and you also had Canada Drive. Those two companies closed in the early seventies when those companies closed. That was 16,000 jobs, lost 16,000 jobs lost. Imagine that it's no, it's no secret of what happened over a period of time.
Speaker 2 00:22:40 Um, now you throw in the discrimination parts of redlining, redlining, um, because there's a area of Maywood where the blacks were only allowed to live. And that's, that's another landmark. Um, the discrimination of banking for businesses. Right now. Maywood is having a hard time, um, attracting and keeping businesses. The property taxes are so high because you don't have businesses to help out with the taxes. One of the things that's not gonna happen is that the, the stone loving Villa May Williams, they're not gonna leave no matter where they at. It's a fight, um, for those who want us to give the community up to gen gentrification, because Maywood is a desirable location. It's, it's about 12 miles from downtown Chicago. The expressways is right there like some other communities who probably packed up and ran. Um, and that happened in Maywood too. There was white flight in the, in the early sixties and the seventies. Um, uh, some, some May Williams are here to stay and they want to see, um, this place come to Fruitation. I'll
Speaker 4 00:23:44 Say that the communities need vanguards like Randall and Chris. I, I showed up out of nowhere not knowing the history and needing to learn to understand, to be effective, and how to partner, how to communicate. Um, you know, you might, if you, if you just show up in one year, you see something, you don't know what has built that relationship, what, uh, what, where pride comes from in the residents. And you have to understand that and work with it. Um, as a faculty at a university in community, I am learning how to serve and how to bring value to community mobilization that's already been running in a history. I'm a part of the puzzle, but I, I didn't start it. I didn't create it. Those people are rooted in the history and the future of Maywood.
Speaker 3 00:24:40 And again, I just love the conversation because it, it just brings about such a richness and how, how important it is to know our history and to know where we come from and to know what our forefathers have done for us ahead of ahead of time. And so, while I still have, um, living black history, my father's 91 and he's still living even through a c he is shelter in place, but I remember stories of what he told me when he was born in the South, right? And then now migrating to the north and landed in the Chicagoland area and then pastoring in Maywood. So why do I say what I say? Because there was a model that was my education. I grew up on one side of town. I was born, I lived on one side of town, but grew up on another, which is a church in which I, I lived in, right?
Speaker 3 00:25:31 We were there most of the time. We spent most of our time with folks in the community and coming to find out a rich history, having black business in place, even when there's a major grocery store in place, and how the extended hours that my father had in the community to be able, they were open before the major food liner and they were open after they closed. And so how the community really, really hoped and focused and, uh, supported, you know, my father in the black business and having livestock fish, you know, so all these things that were in place prior to me being born, right? Those are big shoulders that I stand on. So when you say work in the community, when you say respond to the community, it was modeled.
Speaker 2 00:26:16 We've been called upon to help, uh, someone, someone's who's homeless, or a family that's homeless due to a fire or whatever. And when we post this post, the need on our social media page, you would get, we would get a response to about 60 people in less than an hour. How can I help? How can I donate? Especially recently, there was a young lady, um, that I, and I don't know why God is doing this, but it seemed like they find me <laugh>. But this young lady was in a, in a local park. In fact, it was a park. It was, it was outside the chairman Fred Hampton swimming pool. She was parked outside that swimming pool in Maywood. And I pulled over to get something out my backseat cuz I was about to drop off some food to a senior home. And I saw her, she walked up to me, asked me for money, and initially I said no to her, but when she, when she walked away, um, my spirit wouldn't let me just let that be the end.
Speaker 2 00:27:14 So when I, I asked her, I said, are you homeless? And she was so humble and so sweet, um, she said yes. And long story short, it led to me posting on our page. And when I posted that information and whenever I post, it's good to know that even if I don't have it, I know that Chris Lena, their organization, um, some of the, many of the mothers, the the ladies in our community, some of the men in our community, uh, I know that no matter what I'm not able to do, our network would be able to provide for our, our community. Um, and that's something that I, I'm sure the chairman, Fred Senior knew that when he engaged the community, he knew that whatever resources that he didn't have personally, because he wasn't, he was, he wasn't born into a, with a silver spoon his mouth.
Speaker 2 00:28:02 In fact, chairman Fred Hamptons, he, he despised classism. And to be honest with you, I despised it. Um, some of our former residents of Maywood don't realize the dynamics of the village have totally changed. About two years ago, um, someone I really respect and always contribute to our community, she actually said, Randy, uh, why when y'all ask for money for these kids, why don't they family donate to them? Why don't they family buy for buy it? And I explained to her, I said, you know what the, the middle class community that you grew up in and the, and the, the household with fathers and mothers, that doesn't exist in Maywood anymore. I said, in our, in our grade schools along week, there's about 80 to 70 homeless kids that, that go to local schools in our community and just in our grade schools. That's not even included in our high schools. And that's not even including our, our, um, the foster families. So I, I had to explain to her the dynamics of the community have totally changed. And she, she was shocked. She was shocked. And she's a sweet community loving person. So, um, it was just the fact that she was just unaware.
Speaker 1 00:29:10 That concludes part one of this episode where we focused on history and friendship. Randy McFarland, Chris Chambliss and Lena Hatchet are three stewards working in Maywood, Illinois. You can learn more about their work in the links in the description. In the next episode, we will continue the conversation with Randy, Chris, and Lena digging into the possibilities of unconventional collaborations between Maywood residents and their local hospital. This podcast would not be possible without the talents of Bobby Millstein, Jane Erickson Gerard and Jessica Estelle Huggins, I'm your host ua. So, and this is unsung stewards.
