Neighbors

By Elizabeth Riley and Chloe Wiley
Medill Reports - Chicago

It's afternoon in nearby Englewood, and on one block, kids fill the streets, laughing and riding their bikes. In a halfway house nearby, four registered sex offenders are inside, watching TV or sleeping.

This is a common scenario in this low-income community, in which more than 300 sex offenders live.

By Kahrin Deines
Medill Reports - Chicago

Look out Chicago's front window and you'll behold one of the largest freshwater lakes in the world. More than a thousand cubic miles of water at our doorstep. With the other four Great Lakes, more than 20 percent of the world's surface water.

Not much of an incentive to limit our showers or stint on washing the car.

But in these days of resource competition, even communities near the southernmost Great Lake are starting to feel the pinch of water scarcity.

The Southwest Observer is commemorating its one-year anniversary, kicked off by the annual South Side Irish Parade.

West Beverly native and professional journalist Michael Fielding and Web designer Steve Delmont joined nearly 120 other entrants in the 30th annual South Side Irish Parade, marching proudly down Western Avenue before more than 250,000 onlookers March 9.

The Beverly Arts Center School of the Arts spring session begins the week of March 30, offering nearly 150 fine arts classes for preschoolers through seniors in visual arts, dance, music, theater, digital art, movement, and literary arts. Classes are taught at the center at 2407 W. 111th St., and registration is open.

By Archi Sarkar
Medill Reports - Chicago

Bill Baffes graduated from college with a dream of owning his own grocery store. And in 1964, when an opportunity presented itself at 10800 S. Western Ave., he found an investor and built County Fair Foods. Baffes and his family now run one of the most successful independent grocery stores in Chicago.

By Rob Runyan
Medill Reports - Chicago

Anne Burke is empowered and bounded by her last name.

Of course, that was her choice. Anne McGlone, a South Side native, married Edward Burke in 1968, when they were both 24, and has been a Burke, for better or worse, ever since.

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Saint Xavier University graduate Mary Cray recalls traveling with a fellow student to Selma, Ala., where they marched with the Civil Rights movement in 1965. There they met Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. as well as civil rights activists Ralph Abernathy, C. T. Vivian and James Bevel.

“King was great,” said Cray, class of ’66, now a Riverside resident. “He was very interesting and a tremendous speaker. These were some of the greatest civil rights leaders in the country.”

Local businesses are encouraged to help support the Billy Grant Benefit, which will be held March 30 at 115 Bourbon Street in Merrionette Park. Grant, a decorated, second-generation Chicago firefighter, was killed last March in the line of duty. The benefit will support Grant's widow, Sharon, and three young children.

Businesses are encouraged to participate in several ways:

1) Sponsor the general raffle and silent auction. The sponsorship will be recognized in the event program book as well as part of a list of sponsors on www.grantbenefit.com.