Across Austin Blvd., nonprofits find ways to share services, grow connections
Nonprofits which work across the border between Oak Park and Austin face unique challenges and growing opportunities. After decades in which Austin Boulevard has served as a hard boundary between neighborhoods which were once united, progress is clear if sometimes halting. There are now several nonprofits with physical presences in both communities and a changing awareness of how more affluent and majority white Oak Park can help best by listening more to Austinites.
Three nonprofits — New Moms, Beyond Hunger and The Neighborhood Bridge – are among agencies working in both Oak Park and Austin to serve the two communities in the ways they need to be served.
Prentice Butler, recently named executive director of still new Neighborhood Bridge, recognizes this when discussing how the nonprofit started with volunteers from Oak Park's four Catholic parishes and has strived to work with the Austin community.
"There's been, unfortunately, boundaries between the community for years, and it's been exacerbated by this disinvestment," said Butler. "Many times before where you have a well-resourced community wanting to help out a community in need, there can be, let's be quite frank, a black and white divide between the two communities. But through the efforts of doing the outreach and having conversations with lots of leaders in the community, I think there is a healthy optimism now where there might have been a healthy kind of skepticism."
Butler has seen the positive impact of working with both communities.
"I think it's a positive experience bridging the gap," said Butler. "What we had in mind is to bring people together and make sure it's done in a respectful and equitable way. This is not a top-down approach, this is collaborative. It's been great to get people from both sides of the line of the community to be able to articulate for themselves what they would like to see."
When serving both communities, nonprofits often recognize that the two communities have both different and shared needs.
An example of this comes from the nonprofit Beyond Hunger, which has roots in Oak Park for 45 years, and now has expanded to serving a variety of zip codes, including Austin.
Corina Robinson, communications manager at Beyond Hunger said the nonprofit calculated a food insecurity score that showed that Austin residents have about double the level of food insecurity as counterparts in Oak Park.
"That encouraged us to start a second produce delivery. We began partnering with local farmers and local growers in the area, especially within the Austin community and we were able to start doing a second delivery that's dedicated just to produce for all of our home delivery clients," said Robinson.
Jenna Hammond, chief development officer of the nonprofit New Moms, recognizes this when discussing the use of services across the two communities.
"There are maybe more services in Oak Park, but there's also fewer people in need of those services. So then the ratio there works maybe in the favor of somebody in need, whereas in Austin, we're part of a city that has resources, but there's so many in need of them, creating a different strain on being able to access those resources," said Hammond.
In response, these nonprofits put more investment where needed and actively respond to the needs of those asking for their services.
While there are some struggles when working between Oak Park and Austin, there are many benefits as well.
"Oak Park and Austin have significant community engagement around supporting and addressing issues in their communities. It looks different because the communities are made up of different groups, but they both have people who care very much about the wellbeing of their communities," said Hammond.
There is also a greater continuum of services when working across a variety of zip codes.
"If a young mom we work with begins at our location in Oak Park and then moves into the city and still needs services, she could come to our Chicago site and access those same services," said Hammond.
The Neighborhood Bridge has been having volunteers from both Austin and Oak Park work with them, which creates an opportunity for those across the communities to get to know one another.
"For a lot of people, in Oak Park, they have expressed desire to help and to lift up those that have been left behind traditionally in the community, and there's been a desire in others in the Austin community to make sure that there's open dialog, and their shared effort to make sure Austin is a strong community," said Butler.
