More than 60 coalition members, including Maywood residents and community stakeholders, attended PP4H's 2019 Fall Summit and Health Hub Roundtable on Friday, November 15 at the Thatcher Woods Pavilion.

The three-hour Summit featured Hub Lead updates on PP4H initiatives: Food Justice, School Wellness, Community Leadership Academy, Tobacco-Free Living/ Anti-Vaping, and Smart Routes to School.  Addie Von Zwoll, with Loyola’s School-Based Health Center, presented her work on adolescent mental health awareness. (Click here to see this presentation). Dr. Amy Luke, a faculty member at Loyola’s Parkinson School of Public Health, presented an analysis of video gambling in Illinois (Click here to see this presentation).

Additionally, PP4H staff presented an overview of recent reports related to community health and economic health in Maywood: Artspace study, Loyola Medicine’s Community Health Needs Assessment, and PP4H’s Community Health Hub Workshop summary report.

Roundtable Discussion on Community Health Hub
In the Summit’s last hour, PP4H facilitated roundtable discussions to gather participant input on desired health and wellness-related uses in the Health Hub. In six separate roundtable discussions, participants expressed their vision for a Health Hub that provides a mix of uses ranging from small businesses, retail, community-based programs, counseling and wellness services, educational programs, entertainment, and gathering places for all residents to use. The following themes emerged from residents’ input: youth development; community support–social services; health and wellness services; food-related businesses; small businesses /job creation; creative arts; and placemaking/open space design.  The Roundtable Summary Report can be found here.

Ideas shared by roundtable participants will be integrated into PP4H’s pre-development proposal to support an action plan for the Health Hub. PP4H will continue to share pre-development plans for stakeholder input and co-design discussions to ensure the proposed Health Hub is aligned with resident values.

PP4H would especially like to thank the Pro Bono Committee of the Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-IL) for its leadership and collaboration organizing and co-facilitating the July 17 workshop. 

PP4H is honored to be selected by APA-IL as the winning applicant from across the state to receive expert urban planning assistance and workshop facilitation from a 7-person volunteer team of urban planners from across Chicago.  See a APA-IL newsletter story about this PP4H collaboration here.

APA-IL December Newsletter.

Saturday, October 26, 2019 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews 

On Walks To Maywood School, Conflicts Down, Caring Up
One morning during this school year, an adult male driving a van near Irving Middle School 805 S. 17th Ave. in Maywood, tried luring who he thought was a 13-year-old into his vehicle. The teenager turned out to a 23-year-old employee of a program hatched and implemented by parents and community organizations in order to avoid just this scenario.

“The worker radioed me, I called the police and they ended up catching him on 23rd and St. Charles,” said Antonette Dorris, the program director for Smart Routes to School — a pilot initiative that launched during the 2019-20 school year. “When all of that happened, we executed what we had been trained to do, but when I got home and my coworker told me, ‘Do you realize what happened today?’ I just lost it. That really could’ve been a 13-year-old girl.”

Testimonies to the success of the Smart Routes to School program have been piling up ever since the program was launched in the fall, District 89 officials and community members have said.

The program is the brainchild of District 89 parents who sit on the Safety and Violence Prevention Committee, an offshoot of the Coalition for Spiritual and Public Leadership — a faith-based social justice nonprofit based in Maywood.  Continue to full article in the Village Free Press.

Proviso Partners for Health (PP4H) and a volunteer team of urban planners from the Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-IL) engaged community members in visioning discussions about local entrepreneurship and community wellness for a thriving Maywood.  More than 30 residents, local entrepreneurs, and business owners who attended the July 17 workshop shared their ideas for growing Maywood’s local economy and creating a community hub of opportunity for the entire Village. 

PP4H would especially like to thank the Pro Bono Committee of the Illinois Chapter of the American Planning Association (APA-IL) for its leadership and collaboration organizing and co-facilitating the July 17th workshop.  PP4H is honored to be selected by APA-IL as the winning applicant from across the state to receive expert urban planning assistance and workshop facilitation from a 7-person volunteer team of urban planners from across Chicago.
 
The PP4H and APA-IL team summarized what we learned in a report that captures community members' ideas, suggestions, and broad themes from the workshop.  (A copy of the report can be found here.) 

At its Fall Summit in November, PP4H facilitated roundtable discussions with coalition members, residents and business owners to further explore a mix of possible local retail and business ideas, entrepreneurial opportunities, and nonprofits that promote health and wellness.  As we work to bring ideas to fruition for the Health Hub, PP4H will continue to engage residents in a community-driven planning and development process.

¡Si se puede! Yes we can! Over the last several months, our CSPL Safety and Violence Prevention Committee has been working with our partners to start a Smart Routes to School program in Maywood and Proviso Township in order to ensure that children in the area can walk safely to and from school on a daily basis.  After months of strategizing, organizing petitions and support, meeting with our local officials and showing up to local town meetings, we have great news to share! Last week the governing bodies of Proviso Township, School District 89 and the Village of Maywood each voted to approve funding to support the start of the Smart Routes to School Pilot Program. This program will start at the beginning of this upcoming school year in August 2019!
 

From the Village Free Press - Sunday, March 24, 2019 || By Michael Romain || @maywoodnews

A group of parents in Proviso Township have taken the safety of their children in their own hands with a project next school year that they hope will make it safer for students in Maywood-Melrose Park-Broadview District 89 to get to and from school.
Marche Williams, a parent of two young boys in D89, said that the idea came about after he and a group of other D89 parents started to meet about some of the district’s most pressing challenges.
“The biggest topic was the children’s safety, [particularly around Irving Middle School, 805 S. 17th Ave. in Maywood],” he said during a recent interview. “The parents agreed that we’d make that our starting point for our Safety and Violence Prevention Committee.”  Continued at The Village Free Press