Brainerd Park back-to-school picnic doubles as Chicago anti-violence initiative

CHICAGO (WLS) -- A South Side back-to-school picnic on Sunday was about much more than just getting ready for another school year. It also had a goal of protecting young people in Chicago.

The Brainerd Park Stop the Violence Picnic is happening one day after a shooting on the Southwest Side sent an 18-year-old man and a 15-year-old boy to the hospital.

The organizers of the event say they want to help young people avoid situations like that by providing alternatives to violence.

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For 28 years now, the Washington Heights community has come out to celebrate back to school with a picnic in Brainerd Park. However, it is a picnic with a twist, as organizers seek out at-risk youth and try to show them a better way.

The smell of BBQ wafted through Brainerd Park Sunday as a DJ spun tunes in the background. Children played in a bouncy house and some of the older teens participated in a three-point basketball contest. It was all part of Youth Advocate Program's yearly back-to-school anti-violence event.

"We use it to do outreach," said Ken Lewis, a program director with Youth Advocate Programs. "We know the community is out here. We know the participants we need to engage with will be out here."

Those participants include people like John Green, who after spending 12 years in prison was released last year at the age of 35, and he said he had no real skills until recently. He's been running his own landscaping business for a couple of months now.

"Have you ever heard that everybody has things inside of them you didn't know you could do?" Green said. "This program that's what they help pull out of you. With the landscaping business I didn't know I liked grass like that. Until they showed me that I really did."

Enrolling up to 40 participants every year, Youth Advocate Programs teaches community service by connecting youth to their elders and taking those involved out to clean up vacant lots in and around Washington Heights.

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"It helps them get some workforce development and also it gives them a positive impact in our community," Lewis said. "Where they may have been one of the trouble spots in the community, now they feel proud when we go out and we clean and maintain lots and make the community feel better."

Developing those connections, however, takes time. That's where events like the yearly back-to-school picnic come in.

"There's a disconnect at times between our elders and our youth, and this program is bridging that gap and showing how we can do things," 21st Ward Ald. Ronnie Mosley said.

Youth Advocate Programs still has ten spots left for the upcoming year. Participants will spend 12 months being mentored in addition to taking part in the neighborhood's beautification projects.