Jackie Rosa, director of community engagement at United Way of Metro Chicago, gave us a heads up previously on the Upswell blog – Chicagoans like to party! And not just on weekend nights. In fact, during the summer, they like to break the workday by sitting outside, catching some rays,…
Almost anything can change for the better when good food is involved. For Chicago residents impacted by homelessness and poverty, good food can be life-changing – especially when served with encouragement and supported through culinary training – the house specialties at Inspiration Kitchens. The social enterprise restaurant in East Garfield…
/ by Christian Clansky / One could argue that, in a world continually marked by division, there’s something approaching a universal appeal about the perfect summer day. On this particular one in Chicago – a high-70s, lightly breezy, blessedly crisp Saturday – the North Lawndale community is taking full advantage…
If you want to experience Chicago like the average tourist, your culinary agenda is easy: loaded hot dogs for breakfast, Italian beef for lunch, and deep-dish pizza for dinner. Okay, maybe not in that order. Plus, you should probably also have a big serving of vegetables and Tums. But the…
We hope you’ve had a chance to check out this year’s lineup for Chicago Inside & Out – a dozen thoughtfully designed experiences, all guided by dynamic community leaders across Chicago. These immersive tours are a cornerstone of the Upswell experience, which is all about going deep locally to uncover…
/ By Robert Jones / It’s 9am on a Monday morning following the July 4 weekend. Not a great time to schedule a meeting, perhaps, but the room is filling up, anyway. Extra chairs are brought in to accommodate participants who thought they couldn’t make it but somehow found the…
Upswell can bring together dynamic changemakers and put together a zany program with everything from traditional deep-dive workshops to group ukulele lessons. But at the end of the day, nobody can give you a more authentic experience or a sense of what’s happening on the ground in a city’s many…
/ By Debra Rainey / The word community evokes thoughts of identity, common interests, and acceptance. Upswell’s ever-growing community of changemakers reflects all of these, for sure. But in Chicago, the site of Upswell this November, community means so much more. In the Windy City, community also means 77 specific…
/ By Tamieka Briscoe / We’ve carefully designed Upswell as an opportunity to elevate local ideas in a national spotlight. As we head to Chicago for Upswell later this year, we have our eye on innovative projects taking place throughout the city. In this installment of Innovation in Chicago, BallotReady—a…
/ By Robert Jones / This week, Upswell completed its largest ever crowdsourcing effort, with more than 100,000 participants across our host city of Chicago. Okay, that’s not strictly true, but Upswell will benefit directly from one of the largest in-person crowdsourcing projects in America. We didn’t bring those 100,000…