Step through this door to visit Altgeld Gardens’ new farmers market. Photo by Manquaze Allen.

Marguerite Jacobs is the founder of Altgeld Gardens’ new farmers market located at 939 East 130th Place. Mrs. Jacobs, who happens to be my mother, gets her fresh produce and supplies from Pembroke, Illinois. Vegetables, peanuts and fruit are sold at the market for a low price. The food is freshly grown, so there are no chemicals in her vegetables and fruit. Here are a few items that Mrs. Jacobs sells: potatoes, onions, peppers, oranges, carrots and much more.

“Altgeld is a food dessert community. I feel that the younger kids are exposed to so much fat foods and not enough healthy products. The farmers market will give the kids good choices to eat,” said Mrs. Jacobs. She spent much of the time preparing to open the market at Altgeld in June of 2012. Now she is selling her produce and in 10 months her goal is to start selling meat.

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Editor’s Note: The following article was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program class at People for Community Recovery, a not-for-profit organization based in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development. In April 2011, youths from People for Community Recovery traveled to France as part of a photography exchange program with youths from La Courneuve, a community near Paris.

When we first left out, we went to the office for People for Community Recovery (PCR), an environmental study group. I was really sleepy, and we sat for about 15 minutes. Then a truck pulled up; It was good and clean, big and shiny. Then everyone started taking pictures. I took pictures of the front of the truck, then on the side of the truck to show the details and the wheels. I asked my friend Hollis, a fellow resident of Altgeld Gardens, how does he feel about going to Paris? He said, “I’ve been on lots of planes taking trips to see my auntie in Georgia, but I am very excited.”

The Eiffel Tower. Photo by Manquaze Allen.

A limo pulled up. I wasn’t that excited but Hollis, Lanesha, Lakesha and Nakia – also residents of Altgeld Gardens – were yelling, jumping and moving their bags out of the PCR office into the limo. Every one got in the limo and I was the last person to get in. As I said before, I wasn’t that excited. We started singing in the limo on the way to the airport; we were singing an R Kelly song. When we got out at the airport, everyone got their bags and went to the counter. The airport attendants weighed our bags then we went through security, which took forever. After security, I went to sit down. We boarded and I felt so relieved that we were on the plane. I got a massive headache once we were in the air so I fell asleep. I slept the whole way there.

We arrived in Paris and went to the hotel to drop off our bags. When I saw the bathroom, I was amazed. “Where is the shower?” I asked. I then opened the door next to the bathroom and there was the shower. My jaw dropped! It was so small, barely enough space for one person. After putting my bags up, I met back in the lobby with everyone in the group and we went to eat dinner. I had a hamburger made the American way with lettuce, pickles and tomatoes. The fries were out of this world. I tasted all of the seasoning the restaurant put on them. They used salt and pepper. It was great. We walked back to the hotel to go to sleep.

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Editor’s Note: The following article was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program class at People for Community Recovery, a not-for-profit organization based in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development.

In March, a city-wide youth media group called Nuf Said put out an online and written survey. Nuf-Said is a group of youths from various youth media organizations that came together to find out what young people in Chicago think about education, housing, health, violence and employment.

Once the survey results were in, Nuf-Said participants created media around the statistics to explore how true they are. The survey had a question about a student name Amri getting in a student named Jaden’s face after school over something that had happened in the school lunch room.

The surveyed youths were asked if they would call an authority figure like a teacher or cop. 6.4 percent of the students said they would, while a combined 48.2 percent of students felt they should do something to get back at the other person and 42.3 percent said they would just walk away.

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Editor’s Note: The following article computer science homework help was written by a youth reporter who is a graduate of the Urban Youth International Journalism Program class at People for Community Recovery, a not-for-profit organization based in the Altgeld Gardens public housing development.

It all started in 1^st grade—the thing that I thought would never happen to me, actually did. I’m talking about bullying.

I remember how it started like it was yesterday.

I was sitting down at my desk doing my schoolwork. Then I stood up to go sharpen my pencil and my classmates started calling me fat. I said nothing and went back to sit down and they took my pencil and I told the teacher but the teacher did nothing. I told them to give it back but they didn’t even give it back, so I grabbed the pencil and took it back. They pushed me and then I pushed back. We got into a fight.

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