Northwestern Students Canvas Auburn Gresham

Jimmy Prude
Published: September 24, 2012

Organizing Marketing Material for door to door canvas.

On Thursday, September 20^th students from Northwestern FUP (Freshman Urban Program) coordinated their incoming freshmen, to come into the Auburn Gresham community and assist the Auburn Gresham Development Corp, with organizing and outreach efforts to the residents of the neighborhood. Northwestern Freshman Urban Program (FUP) is a pre-orientation program dedicated to exposing incoming freshmen, to the social and political issues facing the diverse neighborhoods of Chicago’s North, South, East and West side every day for a week. They volunteer in a different neighborhood’s and at various community organizations, with the hope that once the student’s progress at Northwestern, they'll return to some of their sites, to volunteer regularly! Participants are encouraged to form new understandings of these communities through dialogue with social service organizations, Northwestern professors, community members, leaders, and each other.

Two Northwestern groups’ both morning and afternoon, setup camp on the corner of 79^th and Racine and begun extensive outreach to both motorist and passerby’s for Auburn Gresham’s Smart Communities Initiative. The remaining groups of fourteen students, worked with Jimmy Prude, Community/Tech-Organizer, to do door to door canvassing, and outreach to residents encouraging them to take advantage of the beginners and intermediate technology training courses that are taught to many residents throughout the city of Chicago. These classes include E-Commerce, Social Media Strategy, Information-Internet Security, online Civic Engagement for Organizers, and Online Research Methods.

With this being the students first hand exposure to communities such as Auburn Gresham, not only was it fun for them, it was enlightening, educational and eye opening as they actually were able to deconstruct some of the many social lenses, in which they previously viewed communities of Chicago. These students are are definielty some of the brightest in their class, coming from all across America. From Califorina, Boston, Florida, Texas, North Carlonia, Colorado, New York, and Atlanta to name a few. I'm sure thei experienced gained and relationships made will aide them well on their educational and life journey here in Chicago.

Below are the streets students canvassed within the community.

First FUP Group: