What manner of man could plan and execute such horrific and total destruction but also leave behind instructions for the preparation of his body for burial?

What kind of insanity could justify the taking of innocent life in the name of God?

Where is our future headed with such cavalier public discussion regarding eminent devastation and assasination?

What can we do as individuals to manage our lives, maintain our systems and help our fellow man?

We must remember the principles on which the Black United Fund was founded, self-help, mutual aid and voluntary civic participation.

Take care of yourself, assist your neighbor and show your support for the institutions that were built with the sweat of your ancestors and preserved by your support.

Give from the heart, your time, money, ideas, skills and other resources. Everyone has something to give and in giving one will receive.

• Console the elderly and the young who are so disolutioned.
• Question decisions, research options, trust your instincts, require accountability, diversify, be alert but not obsessed.
• Brighten your home, upgrade your car, organize your desk, get a physical, check your schedule, re-evaluate your acquaintances.
• Call an old friend, visit your relatives, check on the homebound, send a card, walk in the rain, watch public television, see a play, plant something (inside or outside), cook a meal.
• Volunteer, volunteer, volunteer.

Patronize your local businesses, but demand community reinvestment - the neighborhood depends on it.

We are a nation of survivors who will emerge stronger than ever. We are industrious, inventive, adaptable and thankful.

Yes, we all want to eliminate the suffering of our fellow man but we must also recognize a struggle that is more subliminal but no less severe. It is the struggle of our people, especially our children who fear for their lives as they survive the violent images they face on a daily basis.

For example, on a recent site visit to an arts organization seeking funding, we noticed that there were no children playing outside on a gorgeous Monday holiday. We were rudely shaken from our tranquility by the whiz of police cars and the sounds of gunfire as we tried to gain entrance to the steel doors that no one answered. We quickly vacated the neighborhood and placed a call.

The Director of the organization apologized for our inconvenience but noted that they really needed the funding and promised to stand outside to try to facilitate our safe return. Upon our return we walked through a gym full of young men playing basketball and upstairs to a huge room full of children involved in a class conducted by members of a highly respected Chicago theatre group. They were cheerfully practicing for an upcoming performance, oblivious of the turmoil outside.

As it was explained to us, these children come to this theatre class to escape the drama unfolding in their neighborhood. Tenants who live in the apartment building on the corner, sell drugs from the windows. Its a drive-by dealership that thrives even though there is heavy police presence.

Not only do the children run this gauntlet daily, but the instructors have been subject to arrest in that they “fit the profile” of suburban drug clients who jump on and off the nearby expressway.

Refuge from disorder in the streets, motivational instruction and subsequent trips to other environs that Arts and Cultural programs afford, are vitally important to the enhancement of the quality of the lives of those who have little to do with their sad surroundings.

Relief does not only come from a bag of food and a place to stay. We must remember the importance of supporting the Arts as an additional means by which we can help others and ourselves. This too is diversity.

Establishing Relationships w/Foundations - a meticulous and in depth discussion conducted by The Woods Fund and McCormick Tribune Foundation program officers.

How To Qualify as a 501 (c)(3) Non-profit - a journey through the IRS forms for qualifying and maintaining tax exempt status.

Strategies for Management Sessions 1 & 2 - focussing on leadership skills, support staff, volunteer and service coordination. Also discussing Board of Directors development, fund raising principles, faith based, public/private projects and success models.

All sessions were facilitated by Rev. Steve Braxton, President of Marketplace Consulting Group

To receive future notices, call BUFI.

We would like to thank our Co-chairs, Diane Dinkins-Carr and Ertharin Cousin-Moore for their assistance in making this event a success.

We would also like to acknowledge the tireless work of the Awards Committee,

Rev. Steve Braxton Dr. Robert Starks Calvin Cook Rosetta Daylie Frances Gutter Wright Ruby Chapman Robert Sengstacke Mel Fletcher

Rev. Victoria Snow Henry L. English Natalie Puryear Rita Wilson Ellen Gary Beverly Hawkins Bernard Williams Julie Houston

and all of our affiliates who supported this effort.

It was an exciting evening of culinary splendor, swinging entertainment and, most importantly, an award ceremony acknowledging those who freely give the generous gifts of time, resources and knowledge toward the education and guidance of another.

The initiation of the 1st Annual “Living Legends/Passing the Torch” Awards Ceremony is an extension of our mission of self-help, mutual aid and volunteerism. It recognizes the importance of mentoring in our community as the way we build and maintain a knowledge base and assure the continuity of our institutions.

The honorees are pioneers and living legends who have invested time and energy in a vision they wished to see passed to another generation.

Guests arrived to a magnificent reception on two floors of the DuSable Museum of African American History. Resplendent with the sounds of a harpist, guests dined at a sumptuous buffet of carved beef tenderloin, au gratin potatoes, Cajun shrimp, grilled vegetables and Caribbean empanades, then were further entertained upstairs by the Mark Durham jazz trio while they mingled with the honorees and sampled a creative dish called the “Comfortini”, a layered turkey meal in a large Martini glass (you must experience it).

As guests moved into the auditorium, they were serenaded by the Orbert Davis Ensemble featuring Ari Brown, Torey Cohen, Leon Joyce and Orbert Davis. Davis discussed the importance of mentoring and introduced his mentor, trombonist (and Soul Food’s Uncle Joe) John Watson, and Davis protegees, 20 something Norman Palm on trumpet and 14 year old singer Kevin Davis who sang in the style of Louie Armstrong.

WVON’s Cliff Kelly emceed the program, beginning with sculptor Mitch Melson’s discourse on the significance of the one-of-a-kind award he created for the honorees. Each award is hand wrought brass with blue and clear crystals atop in the form of a torch. Each torch is embellished with semiprecious stones chosen to represent a traditional African perspective with the colors and treatment symbolizing age:

Amber = Royalty
Ivory = Rite of Passage
Malachite = Healing/Bonding

Videographies produced by Sengstacke Media were aired before the presentation of each set of awards. They were moving testimonials to the development of a legacy and passing it on for generations.

One could see the emotional bond and pride that both the legends and their protegees had for each other. Their acceptance speeches were equally moving but some were simply hilarious.

As honoree Melody Spann-Cooper talked about her success, her dad, Pervis Spann, spoke into the Torch Award as if it were a microphone and joked of her success that she should now be able to reimburse him for her college education.

BUFI Chairman Starks called all honorees back to the stage for a ceremonial pledge to continue to promote generational continuity. The message “Groom someone to take your place” permeated the event. We see this ceremony as a link in the chain of rituals that span the transitions of people of African descent. We look forward to the future.

AFFILIATE

This is just one of the musical productions that flow from one of the most prolific writers on the Chicago scene, Jackie Taylor, Artistic Director and Founder. For 25 years this September, Ms. Taylor has chronicled the musical genius and contributions of African American performing artists, composers, producers including comedians, DJs, promoters and all points in between. This year’s productions, ‘The Nat King Cole Story” followed by “Dynamite Divas” and the return of the 1976 inaugural piece “The Other Cinderella” (a mainstream fable that was given a soulful twist) mesmerized Chicagoans and tourists alike. “Ella” will premier at South Shore Cultural Center soon.

No matter which production you see, you will be totally engaged. Several members of the audience have been known to respond by dancing, crying and with other emotional outbursts. The casts really work the audiences. Behind the scenes, Ms. Taylor is working it too. One minute you may see her sitting in the audience, gauging reactions; the next you may find her hauling chairs to seat latecomers. But always at the end, you’ll find her engaging the audience in conversation and thanking them for their support.

The 150 seat theatre has seen a lot of activity with Black Ensemble Theatre performances and “We are exploring the need for expanded capacity. We’d like to offer 300 seats...we’d like to stay on the north side,” says Taylor.

To facilitate all this activity and plans for expansion, The Black Ensemble Theatre could use additional volunteers to work as ushers and in administrative positions. Ms. Taylor notes that “We would also welcome Auxiliary Board members to assist the Board of Directors by working on various committees.”

Let’s help our institutions remain self-sustaining by making our self-help statements through volunteering to help them grow. Mutual aid is a win-win practice and you can help by contacting the Black Ensemble Theatre at 773/769-4451.

Under the leadership of Executive Director Lestine Byars and Community Development Director Marie Cobb, the organization coordinates initiatives that “help South Shore youth reach their highest potential for secondary success using the entire community as classrooms and resources”, as stated in their mission.

CIESS is the outgrowth of a meeting of concerned community residents. In 1987, the cluster became an organization focused on:

• Community Involvement in Education
• Improved Academic Achievement

Another program or event that was spawned from this initiative is the Annual Juneteenth Celebration. This event commemorates and reenacts the joy and celebration expressed on June 19, 1865, when the Northern Army arrived in Texas and informed the slaves that they had been freed by the Emancipation Proclamation of 1863. In Chicago, CIESS celebrates in a daylong event lead by a parade of historic floats into a picnic in Rainbow Beach Park with entertainment, historians, merchants, the 1st “Real Women Cook All The Time” cook off and voter registrars.

CIESS is the coordinating agency for the development of the New South Shore Community Academy, an effort in partnership with the Black United Fund of Illinois, Leadership for Quality Education, Center for City Schools-National Lewis University, Principals of all 10 schools and others. It is a major collaborative that you will hear more about real soon. CIESS, 773/684-6070.

NEWS

The answers to all of the above lie at 1231 South Pulaski Road, Chicago Christian Alternative (CCA) Academy, an independent affiliate of the Black United Fund of Illinois.

As I approached I thought, “so many doors, which way to go?” Housed in an old bottle cap manufacturing building, the exterior has been brightened by the creative murals of students of the art class. Inside the main door (not the largest door, but the only door with a number over it) I find myself in a small foyer of steel doors reciting, ‘eenie, meenie, minee, moe”. I pick door #2 as I see the tops of some heads through a small window.

Three staff members are intensely trying to fix the copy machine that occupies the narrow hallway that triples as the waiting room, art exhibit hall and business delivery center, so I announce “I’m here to see Myra Sampson,” to anyone who will acknowledge my presence. I could tell that lack of a copy machine is serious business here.

Someone leaves and as I stand in bewilderment, someone else says, “You can sit there”, pointing to a chair without ever looking up. A few minutes later, Executive Director Sampson appears, smiling as she always does and exclaiming, “You’ve never been here?” She whisks me into her office and cuts to the chase, “What do you want to talk about?”.

Embarrassed that I’ve interrupted a busy schedule, I reply, “Wellll, though I’ve known your work for many years, I’ve never seen your facility and I think I can get a deeper understanding of how you do what you do by watching things happen, a quick look see”. How arrogant, I thought. Did I really say that to this very important lady with important things to do?

We talk. Students come to CCA Academy not only as academic or disciplinary challenges at other schools but because of the excellent reputation of the academy. Some students who’ve had no problems in school come for the well rounded and expanded curriculum.

“If a student’s disciplinary problem stems from the home environment, we try to work with them and the parent(s). We must have a commitment from parents in order to work with the child. If problems are due to a general lack of respect and the student is resigned to disruption, we don’t tolerate it. There are too many students who are willing to work” says Sampson.

“Alternative education means that we work with the individual to accommodate the needs of someone who wants to achieve but for some unfortunate reason, must cope with a past mistake. For example, if a student has children, we try to give them a little flexibility before or after school because she may have to take an infant to one caregiver and a toddler to another. If a student has a part time job, we may also need to work with the after school schedule.”

Class room sizes are small, so there is more individualized attention. Some subjects, as is computer technology, are learned at one’s own pace. The most recent renovation has been done to accommodate the science lab, an impressive glass enclosed room with gleaming equipment and spacious work tables. The petite young teacher is in command. The students are involved.

The bell rings and students quietly but swiftly change classrooms as they have only 3 minutes to do so. Everyone who crosses our path has a greeting for Mrs. Sampson. The faculty is a mix ethnics as is the student body, but most are African American. “We advertise for faculty as we look for special people to make a special commitment. Our teachers are not only brilliant in their fields but they are flexible and possess well rounded talents.”

CCA not only offers academic enrichment but includes life skills as well. A holistic approach is practiced, that reaches out to the extended families and environs of the students. Students and community members can participate in hands on work training as CCA has a bakery where they produce some of the finest gourmet breads and catered boxed lunches you can find in the city. The retail facility on North Broadway, an eclectic neighborhood, was recently closed so that the business could expand in the larger west side facility. Students graduate this school with all the knowledge and skills to move on to college and/or entrepreneurship. All this plus the nurturing rooted in faith.

The good job being done at CCA is evidenced not only by the quality of the graduates, but also the growing show of support from families, volunteers and sponsors from all over the Chicagoland area who make the annual fund-raising event “Love On the Lake” such a success.

The CCA family is a shining star in the Chicago skyline. To wish upon that star, call 773/762-2272.

You can now also donate to BUFI through the Web. Credit cards that can be submitted are:

• Visa
• Master Card
• American Express
• Discover Card
• Diners Club and
• JCB

Our presence on the Web isn’t only practical - it signifies an important and exciting step forward.

Federal Government (CFC) -	9/1-12/31
State of Illinois (SECA) -	10/1-12/31
City of Chicago -	1/15 - 3/15
Chicago Transit Authority -	5/15 - 6/30
Chicago Public Schools -	3/15 - 5/30
Metropolitan Water Reclamation -	11/1 - 1/15

Corporate

3Com -	11/15 - 12/1
AT&T -	9/15 - 9/30
Leo Burnett -	9/1 - 10/1
Fermi Lab -	9/15 - 11/15
IBM -	9/15 - 9/30
Lucent Technologies -	10/3-10/30
Pace -	11/1 - 12/15
South Shore Bank -	4/1- 5/1
United Airlines -	11/1 - 12/31

Federal, state and city campaigns include law enforcement and emergancy services, the military, legistaltive departments, revenue agencies, hospitals, universities and other public schools, highway and transit authorities and postal services. You help thousands statewide.