PARTICIPANTS:

• Dennis Deer - Cook County Commissioner of the 2nd District

• Alma E. Anaya - Cook County Commissioner of the 2nd District

• Lanetta Haynes Turner - Chief of Staff, Cook County Government

MODERATOR:

• Judith Helfand - Director/Producer, Cooked: Surival by Zip Code

Lanetta Haynes Turner, Chief of Staff for Cook County Board President Toni Preckwinkle

Dennis Deer, Cook County Commissioner of the 2nd District

Alma Anaya, Cook County Commissioner of the 7th District

PARTICIPANTS:

• Judith Helfand - Director/Producer, COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

• Eric Klinenberg - Author; Helen Gould Shepard Professor of Social Science; Director of the Institute for Public Knowledge at New York University

MODERATOR:

• Jamie Nesbitt - Golden of Block Club Chicago

From A Social Autopsy to A Palace for the People: Author, Eric Klinenberg talks about the value of social capital and community-based institutions as life saving forces.

PANELISTS:

• Fernando De Maio - DePaul University

• Wesley Epplin - Health & Medicine Policy Research Group and Collaborative for Health Equity – Cook County

• Judith Helfand - Director/Producer, COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

• Brenda Rodriguez - Collaborative for Health Equity – Cook County

MODERATOR:

• James Bloyd - Collaborative for Health Equity – Cook County

James Bloyd - Collaborative for Health Equity – Cook County

Jim Bloyd was drawn to public health because of its foundation in social justice. Since receiving his master’s degree from UCLA he has practiced at the local level in three public health departments, in California and Illinois. He is on the Steering Committee of the Collaborative for Health Equity Cook County, which is one of 19 teams in the National Collaborative for Health Equity. He is writing about the experiences and insights of health equity leaders for his dissertation at the University of Illinois at Chicago, School of Public Health.

Fernando De Maio, PhD - DePaul University

Fernando De Maio, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Sociology at DePaul University. His research and teaching interests lie primarily within medical sociology and social epidemiology, examining structural and social determinants of health.  He is the author of Health & Social Theory (2010) and Global Health Inequities (2014), and co-editor of Latin American Perspectives on the Sociology of Health and Illness (2018) and, most recently, Community Health Equity: A Chicago Reader (2019).  His work appears in a wide range of journals, including the American Journal of Public Health, Critical Public Health, Global Public Health, the Journal of Health Care for the Poor and Underserved, Health Sociology Review, the International Journal of Epidemiology, and the New England Journal of Medicine. He serves as an associate editor of Health Sociology Review. Fernando is the co-director of the Center for Community Health Equity, which was founded by DePaul University and Rush University in 2015. He is also a Research Fellow at the Sinai Urban Health Institute.

Wesley Epplin - Health & Medicine Policy Research Group and Collaborative for Health Equity – Cook County

Wesley Epplin serves as the Director of Health Equity at Health & Medicine Policy Research Group (Health & Medicine), a nonprofit focused on advancing health equity by improving the health of all people. He is also a member of the steering committee for the Collaborative for Health Equity Cook County (CHE). 

Since joining Health & Medicine in July 2013, Wesley has served as an advocate for health equity.  His work within the Center for Public Health Equity at Health & Medicine focuses on: 1) healthcare as a human right; 2) moving the health sector to apply a strong health equity approach to public health issues; and 3) joining with others to fight against all forms of oppression. His work includes analysis, advocacy, capacity building, and health organizing.

In 2016, Wesley and three other members of the CHE steering committee were selected to be part of the first cohort of the Culture of Health Leaders, a national leadership program supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  His team’s Reimagine Health initiative is currently recruiting people to join the Organizing Health institute (OHi), which trains health workers in organizing to build power with communities demanding justice—and to apply a health lens to community organizing efforts. 

Wesley is also a co-founder of and facilitator for Radical Public Health, a group at the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health that works to expand the role of the field in identifying and eliminating the many forms of oppression, violence, and injustice that contribute to health inequities.

Wesley earned a Master of Public Health degree in Community Health Sciences from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) School of Public Health (SPH) and a BA in Political Science from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.

Brenda L. Rodríguez, Steering Committee Member, Collaborative for Health Equity – Cook County

Ms Rodriguez has had the honor of organizing in the workers’ rights movement for the past 8 years. After she graduated from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, she was a literary graduate student in Texas and a rank-and-file leader of the Texas State Employees Union. During the height of the Occupy Movement, she decided to leave her program and join the labor movement. Her background includes organizing with Unite Here! and Working America. During this time, she's organized film and dairy workers in Albuquerque, trained new organizers across the Western region, and created electoral analysis and strategy. She grew up in Little Village, an environmental justice community on the southwest side of Chicago and currently resides in Berwyn, a western suburb less than 5 miles away. Informed by these experiences, she currently volunteers as a board member for IXCHEL and serves as a steering committee member of the Collaborative for Health Equity - Cook County to raise awareness, build power, and address the environmental and health hazards. Currently, she consults on worker cooperative development with Centro de Trabajadores Unidos Incubator and works as the Community Partnerships Manager with the Chicago Food Policy Action Council. She recently graduated with her Master’s in Public Health from John Hopkins University and seeks to advance food sovereignty, health equity, and democratic workplaces. When she’s not a protest or reading, she enjoys eating churros with her family, playing scrabble, and going on hikes with her blue heeler.

This panel is dedicated to the life, work and legacy of Dr. Steve Whitman.

PANELISTS:

• David Ansell, MD, MPH - Rush University Medical Center

• Maureen Benjamins PhD - Sinai Urban Health Institute

• Dr. Linda Rae Murray, MD MPH - Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Illinois School of Public Health

MODERATOR:

• Anne Evens - Elevate Energy

David Ansell, MD, MPH - Rush University Medical Center

David Ansell, MD, MPH is the Michael E Kelly Presidential Professor of Internal Medicine and Senior Vice President/Associate Provost for Community Health Equity at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. He is a 1978 graduate of SUNY Upstate Medical College. He did his medical training at Cook County Hospital in Chicago. He spent 13 years at Cook County as an attending physician and ultimately was appointed Chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine at Cook County Hospital.  From 1995 to 2005 he was Chairman of Internal Medicine at Mount Sinai Chicago. He was recruited to Rush University Medical Center as its inaugural Chief Medical Officer in 2005, a position he held until 2015. His research and advocacy has been focused on eliminating health inequities. In 2011 he published a memoir of his times at County Hospital, County: Life, Death and Politics at Chicago’s Public Hospital. His latest book is The Death Gap: How Inequality Kills was published in 2017. 

Maureen Benjamins PhD - Sinai Urban Health Institute

Maureen Benjamins, PhD is a Senior Research Fellow at the Sinai Urban Health Institute (SUHI). Her research focuses on health disparities and the influence of social factors on these disparities. Dr. Benjamins has led several initiatives to study health equity nationally and in Chicago. Currently, she is leading a comprehensive study of racial disparities in mortality across the biggest cities in the U.S. She was also the co-Principal Investigator of the Sinai Community Health Survey 2.0, which is a representative survey of 1,500 adults and 400 children in 9 Chicago communities and one of the largest community-driven, face-to-face health surveys in Chicago history. In addition to her research efforts, Dr. Benjamins developed and directs the Sinai Population Health Institute, an interprofessional institute focusing on health equity and social determinants of health. She runs two internship programs for medical students and is an adjunct faculty member at Rosalind Franklin University of Medicine and Science. She received her BA from Duke University and her master’s and doctorate in sociology from the University of Texas at Austin. She held a post-doctoral fellowship in gerontological public health at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Benjamins is grateful to have been mentored by Dr. Steve Whitman and for the opportunity to work at SUHI for the past 15 years.

Anne C. Evens, PhD    

 Anne Evens is the Chief Executive Officer of Elevate Energy, a nonprofit organization based in Chicago.   At Elevate, we design and implement programs that reduce costs, protect people and the environment, and ensure the benefits of clean and efficient energy use reach those who need them most. Elevate Energy seeks to create a world in which everyone has clean, healthy, safe and affordable heat, power, and water in their homes and communities — no matter who they are or where they live. Making the benefits and services of the clean energy economy accessible to everyone is how we fight climate change while supporting equity. Dr. Evens has worked in energy efficiency and affordable housing for over twenty-five years in both the nonprofit and governmental sectors in the U.S. and in southern Africa.

Ms. Evens sits on the boards of Health Alliance International and the Rebuilding Exchange.  She’s an alumni of the Harvard Business School, Strategic Perspectives in Nonprofit Management and Goldman Sachs 10,000 Small Businesses program. In addition, she acted as lead researcher on the Chicago Climate Action Plan and the Regional Energy Plan for the Chicago Metro Agency for Planning (CMAP). Ms. Evens received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Chicago, and a M.S. University of Pennsylvania.

Dr. Linda Rae Murray - Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Illinois School of Public Health

Dr. Murray has spent her career serving the medically under served. She has worked in a variety of settings including practicing Occupational Medicine at a Workers Clinic in Canada, Residency Director for Occupational Medicine at Meharry Medical College, and Bureau Chief for the Chicago Department of Health under Mayor Harold Washington. Dr. Murray worked as Medical Director of the federally funded health center, Winfield Moody, serving Cabrini Green Public Housing Project in Chicago. Dr. Murray has been an active member of a wide range of local and national organizations including serving as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Board of Directors of Trinity Health ( a large Catholic Health system).

In 1997 Dr. Murray returned to the Cook County Health System where she served as Chief Medical Officer - Primary Care for the twenty three primary care and community health centers comprising the Ambulatory & Community Health Network of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services; and as an attending physician in the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Cook County Hospital. The Cook County Health and Hospitals System is one of the nation’s largest public system of medical care and operates two hospitals, the public health department for suburban Cook County, health services a County Jail and the network of health Centers (ACHN) operated by the County. Dr. Murray has worked in leadership roles in many public health organizations including NACCHO’s (National Association of City & County Health Officers) Health Equity and Social Justice Team, the national executive board of APHA. During 2011 she served as President of the American Public Health Association. In December 2014, she retired from her position as the Chief Medical officer for the Cook County Department of Public Health of the Cook County Health & Hospital System , the PHAB accredited and state certified public health department for suburban Cook County. In December 2018 Dr. Murray stopped seeing patients as a voluntary attending in Internal Medicine ending over forty years of clinical practice.

Today she serves as an Honorary Attending of Cook County Health and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health (Occupational & Environmental Health and Health Policy & Administration Departments). She serves on many local and national boards including the Chicago based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group; and chairs the board for the National Collaborative for Health Equity. She remains passionate about increasing the number of Black and Latino health professionals and serves on the Urban Health Program Community Advisory Committee at the University of Illinois. Dr. Murray is devoting the rest of her career to being an enthusiastic full time trouble maker. She has been a voice for social justice and health as a basic human right for over fifty years.

PANELISTS:

• Alma Anaya - Cook County Commissioner of the 7th District

• Allison Arwady - Acting Commissioner Chicago Department of Public Health

• Judith Helfand - Director/Producer, COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

• Dr. Terry Mason - Chief Operating Officer, Cook County Department of Public Health

• Ranjani Prabhakar - Deputy Policy Director - Climate Change, City of Chicago

MODERATOR:

• Alden Loury - Senior Editor: Race, Class & Communities, WBEZ

Alden Loury - Senior Editor: Race, Class and Communities, WBEZ

In July 2018, Alden joined WBEZ as senior editor of the race, class and communities desk, which provides enterprise reporting on those topics as well as housing, immigration and employment.

Previously, Alden served as the director of research and evaluation for the Metropolitan Planning Council for two years where he examined and wrote about population loss, demographic shifts, job trends and racial segregation.

Prior to joining MPC, Alden served as an investigator and later as a policy analyst for the Better Government Association. In more than four years at the BGA, Alden documented abuses with legislative scholarships, campaign finance expenditures and ward remapping and later analyzed data and lobbied for reforms to increase government transparency, efficiency and accountability.

Prior to joining the BGA, Alden spent 12 years at The Chicago Reporter, initially as a reporter, then senior editor and finally as publisher. He authored, edited or provided research for more than 50 investigative projects examining the impact of race and class in drug sentencing, jury verdicts, jury selection, lottery ticket sales, fatal police shootings and subprime mortgage lending, among others.

Alden has discussed his work on ABC7, CBS2, Chicago Public Radio, CNN, FOX32, NBC5, WGN-TV, and WTTW Chicago Tonight. His research has appeared in The Chicago Defender, Chicago Sun-Times, Chicago Tribune, Crain’s Chicago Business, Forbes, Los Angeles Times, The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.

Alden is a Chicago native who grew up in the LeClaire Courts public housing development and later the Auburn Gresham community on the city’s south side. He is married with three daughters.

Allison Arwady - Acting Commissioner Chicago Department of Public Health

Dr. Allison Arwady, MD, MPH, is the acting commissioner at the Chicago Department of Public Health (CDPH). She has been at CDPH for four years in the role of chief medical officer, overseeing the disease control, environmental health, emergency preparedness, and behavioral health divisions. Prior to CDPH, she worked for the CDC, with a focus on disease outbreak response including Ebola, and at the Illinois Department of Public Health. She completed medical school and clinical training at Yale University, and is a board-certified internal medicine physician and pediatrician. She continues to see primary care patients weekly and is particularly interested in using data to promote health equity in Chicago.

Alma Anaya - Cook County Commissioner of the 7th District

Alma Anaya is the Cook County Commissioner of the 7th District, serving the Southwest Side of Chicago. Alma became the only Latina (the first in over 25 years), and the youngest woman to ever serve on the Cook County Board of Commissioners when she took office. Alma is also one of the few formerly undocumented immigrants to hold office in the country. 

Alma was born in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico and arrived to the United States at the age of 6. She is the oldest of 4 and was raised by a single mother on the Southside of Chicago. Alma holds a Bachelor’s degree in Communications and a Master’s degree in Public Administration from the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC).

Prior to taking office, Alma had seven years of experience working on the Cook County Board. She has worked on County and internal budgets, policy initiatives, and has collaborated with community stakeholder to provide resources to the constituents of the 7th District.

Alma is constantly active in her community. She has served on the Local School Councils (LSC) and with non-for-profit organizations like Mujeres Latinas en Acción (MLEA) where she is both a MLEA Board member and Co-Chair of the Young Professional Advisory Council. Alma was also selected as a Racial Equity Fellow in the inaugural cohort of Chicago United for Equity and is an Edgar Fellows alumni through the Institute of Government & Public Affairs at the University of Illinois.

Dr. Terry Mason - Chief Operating Officer, Cook County Department of Public Health

Dr. Mason was appointed the Chief Operating Officer of the Cook County Department of Public Health by the Honorable Toni Preckwinkle, President of the Cook County Board of Commissioners, in 2013 after serving more than three years as the Chief Medical Officer and six months as interim Chief Executive Officer for the Cook County Health and Hospitals System.

The Cook County Department of Public Health is a state‐certified local public health department serving suburban Cook County including 125 local municipalities, covering a 700 square mile area, with a large urban population of approximately 2.3 million residents. As the COO, Dr. Mason provides leadership, fiscal responsibility, and performance based accountability in management. He is responsible for public health programs and services for one of the nation’s largest metropolitan health departments, ranging from disease prevention, control and epidemiology; health statistics; health promotion; STD/HIV screening; emergency preparedness; and environmental licensing, inspections and complaints.

Before joining the Cook County Health and Hospitals System and the Cook County Department of Public Health, he served as the Commissioner of Chicago Department of Public Health. Dr. Mason received his BS in Biology from Loyola University and his MD from Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine at the University of Illinois Chicago. He devoted 25 years of his life in private practice as a board certified Urologist. During that period, his focus was on male erectile dysfunction and prostate cancer. He is a nationally recognized health educator and inspirational speaker who champions holistic approaches to health management.

It is Dr. Mason’s continued vision to transform healthcare delivery through the integration of public health and public medicine to create a population based strategy to manage chronic disease. He is a member of many professional organizations and serves on multiple boards. Dr. Mason is a member of the Cook County Physicians Association and was featured in the 2010 film “Forks over Knives” and received a Telly Award for the video, “Not By Myself,” featuring Marylyn Macoo and Billy Davis Jr. Dr. Mason has delivered countless presentations and conducted numerous interviews on a range of public health matters and continues to share his holistic approach to health on his popular radio show on WVON 1690 AM call in show, “The Doctor in the House” for more than 21 years.

Ranjani Prabhakar - Deputy Policy Director - Climate Change, City of Chicago

Ranjani Prabhakar is a city planner, engineer, and policy wonk in the sustainability field. Currently, she is the Deputy Policy Director of Climate Change for the Office of Mayor Lori Lightfoot, where she manages renewable energy and sustainability initiatives for the City. Prior to this role, Ranjani was a transportation planner working on traffic operations, transit planning and statistical projects. She has past experience in economic and community development, grantmaking, and affordable housing. She received her Masters in City Planning and Civil Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, and her Bachelors in History, Political Science and German Studies from Emory University. 

PANELISTS:

• Naomi Davis - Blacks In Green

• Judith Helfand - Director/Producer, COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

• Danielle Perry - Growing Home

• Anton Seals - Grow Greater Englewood

MODERATOR:

• Daniel Block - Professor, Chicago State University; Adjunct Professor, Northwestern University

Daniel Block - Professor, Chicago State University; Adjunct Professor, Northwestern University

Daniel Block is a professor of geography at Chicago State University and an adjunct professor of preventive medicine at Northwestern University. He has completed many food access studies, including the Northeastern Illinois Community Food Security Assessment, a large-scale food access study of the six-county Chicago metro area. He is author or co-author of several articles on the regulation and gendering of milk in the early twentieth century, foodways of the urban poor, and the book Chicago: A Food Biography. Much of his work focuses on community-university partnerships for food justice. He is a past president of the Agriculture, Food, and Human Values Society, is currently on the board of the Association for the Study of Food and Society, and is a fellow of the Association of American Geographers. He currently is a board member of the Chicago Food Policy Action Council, where he is coordinating an effort to evaluation to effects of the Good Food Purchasing Program in Chicago and Cook County. He currently is embarking on a study comparing the regulation of street food vendors in Chicago and France. He received his PhD from UCLA where he studied the history of milk regulation in Chicago and the US.

Naomi Davis - Founder/President: Blacks In Green (BIG)

Naomi is an urban theorist, attorney, activist, and proud granddaughter of Mississippi sharecroppers. Her heritage forms the foundation for BIG's course in Grannynomics™, The 8 Principles Green-Village-Building™ and The Sustainable Square Mile™ which Naomi authored and teaches nationally in lectures and workshops.

As founder/president of BIG, Naomi has a shelf of early awards to validate her ideas, but what uniquely qualifies her leadership is her productivity: the consistent application of her broad skills over the 12 year arch of BIG’s history.  She has funded the organization, produced all its marketing materials, written all curricula, recruited and managed all teams, and represented the organization before legislatures, at conferences, in business negotiations, and in community convenings.  BIG’s launch of The Green Living Room marks its transition from a volunteer/grant-driven org to an earned income social mission enterprise.

Naomi has served on Governor-Elect Pritzker’s Transition Team - Powering Illinois’ Future, on Mayor Emanuel’s Transition Team for Energy, Environment, and Public Space, and was selected as a sustainability thought leader at Groupon’s First Annual Chicago Ideas Week. 

She is a respected community advocate for equitable development in the communities surrounding the Obama Presidential Center and has lived and worked in West Woodlawn since 2010. She was born and raised in the walkable-village of St. Albans, NY; is a graduate of Woodmere Academy County Day School, Fisk University, and John Marshall Law School, and via her vision for self-sustaining black communities everywhere, aims to reinvent her childhood “sustainable-square-mile” here in the Age of Climate Crisis.

Danielle Perry - Executive Director: Growing Home

Danielle Perry is the Executive Director for Growing Home. With Chicago’s first and only high-production, USDA-certified organic farms, Growing Home runs an innovative employment training program that uses urban agriculture to teach job skills for individuals with barriers to employment. The organization strives to provide affordable, healthy food and food education to the Greater Englewood community, where the farm is located.

Prior to joining Growing Home, Danielle was the Director of Communications and Outreach at the City of Chicago’s Office of Inspector General, where she was responsible for engaging communities around the City about police accountability and government efficiency through strategic partnerships and public engagement. Danielle returned to Chicago after serving in the Obama Administration as a Special Advisor to the Assistant Secretary for Civil Rights at the United States Department of Agriculture. During her tenure at USDA, she led a National Community and School Garden Initiative in food insecure communities around the country. Prior to her presidential appointment, she was a Congressional Aide for Congressman Chris Van Hollen, where she managed a portfolio that included Social Security, healthcare, and civil rights issues. 

Perry earned a BA in Political Science from Howard University and a JD from Howard University School of Law.  

Anton Seals - Grow Greater Englewood

L. Anton Seals Jr., a South Shore Chicago native, is a strong cultural voice of his generation. Organizer, educator, community connector, filmmaker and entrepreneur. Anton’s work is dedicated to service and active engagement through the use of media arts, community organizing and empowerment to dismantle oppressive system impacting divested and oppressed communities. Anton started Seals360group to focus on audience community engagement, advocacy/policy and social enterprise development. 

Anton is currently the Lead Steward (Executive Director) of Grow Greater Englewood a social enterprise focusing on building a equitable and resilient local food system that fosters protections of vacant land in divested communities and focuses on connecting those residents with community wealth building opportunities. 

Anton also is on staff at the Egan Office for Urban Education and Community Partnership at DePaul University(where he is also an Alumni) training and teaching with a cross-section of small and large organizations, using Asset Based community development(ABCD) institute, also located at DePaul University Steans Center. 

Anton is a 2010 German Marshall Fellow, connecting local and global voices to create new systems helping solve complex issues around global resources allocation as it relates to the African diaspora position within the United States and Europe. 

Anton is one of the founders of the Revival Arts Collective, a group of artists committed to using arts and culture as a catalyst for community redevelopment. 

PANELISTS:

• Chief Rabbi Capers Shmuel Funnye - Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation

• Rev. Dr. Marshall Hatch - New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church

• Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann - Mishkan Chicago

• Pastor Booker Vance - Elevate Energy

MODERATOR:

• Judith Helfand - Director/Producer, COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

Rabbi Funnye, Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation

Capers C. Funnye, Jr. is rabbi and spiritual leader of Beth Shalom B’nai Zaken Ethiopian Hebrew Congregation, located at 6601 South Kedzie Avenue, Chicago, IL 60629. Rabbi Funnye also serves as the chief rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis, Inc., which serves congregations in the United States, the Caribbean, South Africa, Nigeria, Cameroon, Ghana, and Uganda.

In his capacity as chief rabbi, Funnye works to bring diverse communities into the Jewish fold, through the Halakah, the Jewish code of law. This work is most apparent working with the Lemba community of South Africa, the Ibo communities in the south and southeastern regions of Nigeria, Ghana, Cameroon, and Uganda.

Rabbi Funnye earned a Bachelor of Arts in Hebrew Literature and rabbinic ordination from the Israelite Board of Rabbis, Inc., Queens, NY. He also earned a Bachelor of Arts degree in Jewish Studies and Master of Science in Human Service Administration from Spertus Institute of Judaica, Chicago, IL.

Rabbi Funnye is a member of several boards in the Jewish community, The Chicago Board of Rabbis, Jewish Council on Urban Affairs-past President, Hebrew Immigration Aid Society, Chicago Theological Seminary, The Chicago Institute for Psychoanalysis and Chief Rabbi of the International Israelite Board of Rabbis.

Rabbi Funnye has lectured at several institutions throughout the United States, Europe and Africa. Rabbi Funnye has also served as a consultant to several institutions throughout the United States. Du Sable Museum of African American History, Chicago, Illinois, Smithsonian Museum of African American Culture, Washington, D.C., and the Chicago Historical Society.

Rabbi Funnye is married and he and his wife Mary have four children and are the proud grandparents of twelve grandchildren, nine grandsons and three granddaughters. 

Rev Dr. Marshall Elijah Hatch, Sr: New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church

Rev Dr. Marshall Elijah Hatch, Sr:  Marshall Elijah Hatch, Sr. has been the Pastor of the New Mount Pilgrim Missionary Baptist Church located in the heart of Chicago’s West Garfield community since 1993. Born March 11, 1958 in Chicago, Illinois, Marshall Hatch is a native of the west side. His spiritual development began in Shiloh Missionary Baptist Church under the pastorate of his father, the late Reverend Elijah Hatch. In 1985, he was ordained as a minister, and later in that same year was appointed as Pastor of the Commonwealth Missionary Baptist Church in North Lawndale.

Throughout his ministry, Marshall Hatch has commenced numerous community outreach programs. Most notable among these are the Westside Isaiah Plan, Ezra Homes, and Pilgrim Village Homes-Washington Boulevard, new construction affordable housing development projects that built over 200 single family homes in Chicago. In 2009, Hatch established  “Passports to The World”, a biennial overseas African missions trip for the church’s inner city youth. He has also launched a visitation and correspondence ministry for the incarcerated in the Illinois Department of Corrections and Cook County Jail, organized the Mountain Men Ministries, the Women of Purpose discipleship ministry, “The Call To Life” Substance Abuse Support Ministry, the Safe Haven CPS after school program, and the Pilgrim Development Corporation of West Garfield Park (Pilgrim Village & Pilgrim Village Apartments). Currently, NMP/PDC has partnered with Chicago Cred to employ at risk young men (18-24 years old) in a community development program called the “MAAFA Redemption Project”. The MR Project completes rehab of a multi-unit residential building and preps the adjacent Pilgrim Village Early Child Development/Community Arts Center on the Washington Boulevard campus.

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann - Founder, Mishkan Chicago

Rabbi Lizzi Heydemann is the founder of Mishkan Chicago, an independent spiritual community in Chicago whose mission is to reimagine and breathe new life into Judaism– leading people toward greater purpose, connection and inspiration. Mishkan engages, educates and. empowers people through dynamic experiences of Jewish prayer, learning, social activism and community building. Since its founding in 2011, Mishkan has gained national recognition for its unique brand of inspiration and inclusivity, bringing thousands of diverse and mostly unaffiliated people into Jewish community and practice, many of them young adults. Lizzi currently sits on the board of T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, as well as the rabbinic cabinet of AVODAH: The Jewish Service Corp. She is an alumnus of Rabbis Without Borders Fellowship and the Clergy Leadership Incubator, a native of Chicago's South Side, and a graduate of Stanford University and the Conservative Movement Ziegler School of Rabbinic Studies.

Booker Steven Vance - Policy Outreach Coordinator, Elevate Energy

A recent addition to the Elevate Energy Team as a Policy Outreach Coordinator. Served as Pastor of St. Stephens Evangelical Lutheran Church on the South Side of Chicago for over 25 years before engaging in the intersection of Community Organizing and the Environmental Justice Discipline. He likes to see Ecumenical Interfaith Environmental Justice Communities engage in productive collaborative work. He was a part of the Chicago Climate Table Working group who help shape and pass the FEJA – The Future Energy Jobs Act in 2016. He remembers the Heat Wave of 1995 and appreciates the documentation of the crisis. He considers his time at Faith in Place as pivotal in his growth as Environmental Justice Advocate and Ecumenical/Interfaith Leader. He lives on the South Side of Chicago. He is the Father of Two Sons, Booker Jr. and Erwin. Erwin is married to Krystal and they are the parents of 3 children. Therefore Pastor Vance as he is affectionately referred to is the Grandpa of 3, Aniyah, Isaiah and Nia.  

PANELISTS:

• Judith Helfand - Director/Producer, COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

• Cheryl Johnson - People for Community Recovery

• Joshi Radin - Pilson Environmental Right and Reform Organization

• Kim Wasserman - Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

• Kyra Woods - Conservation Organizer, Sierra Club

Cheryl Johnson - People for Community Recovery

Cheryl Johnson is a long-time residents of Altgeld Gardens a public housing development located on the far south side of Chicago.  She is a mother of two, grandmother of one. Ms. Johnson is the daughter of the late Hazel Johnson, “Mother of Environmental Justice,” who founded People for Community Recovery 40 years ago and now Cheryl has taken the reign to continue to fight for environmental justice and equality in Chicago.  Cheryl has been with PCR for the past thirty-two years as an administrative assistance to project manager and now the executive director of PCR. Ms. Johnson is a strong advocate like her mom on urban environmental pollution and its negative impacts on human health. She believes the climate change is real like her mother stated two decades ago that if America does not change its practices of damaging our ozone layers and emitting toxins into our air, we will see a change in our weather patterns. Today’s her statement is true and we call it climate change!

Ms. Johnson has various training experiences and holds many certificates that are environmental related to help assist her in educating her community. Ms. Johnson has co-written several journal articles on environmental health and risk factors, she a passion speaker about environmental justice issues and the injustices associated with it.  Ms. Johnson belongs to several organizations that address environment, health, housing, and safety issues. In 2012 former Governor Pat Quinn appointed Ms. Johnson as one of the 12 members of the Illinois Environmental Justice Commission and 2017 became a member of the National Environmental Justice Council of the United States Environmental Protection Agency.  Ms. Johnson received several awards and recognitions for the work she has done on environment and housing related issues.

Joshi Radin - Pilson Environmental Right and Reform Organization

Joshi Radin, Grassroots Education Campaign Organizer, Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization (PERRO)

Joshi Radin is an artist and activist living in Chicago. As the grassroots education organizer for PERRO's Solar for Pilsen campaign, she works to educates residents on opportunities available through Illinois' low-income solar program, Illinois Solar for All. She has previously worked on justice issues in affordable and transitional housing as a board member of the YWCA Cambridge, operator of 103 Single Room Occupancy units and the city’s largest residential housing provider for women, as well as a family shelter. She collaborated with former Director of Family Medicine at Boston Health Care for the Homeless, Dr. Summer Bartholomew, staff and patients to create a permanent installation piece at the federally qualified Titusville Clinic in Brevard County, Florida. As an art teacher at a medium security women’s prison in Framingham, MA she worked with women on personal projects and organized internal exhibits of their work. During an exchange with Tokyo University of the Arts and curator Mary Jane Jacob, she met with artists organizing and responding publicly to the Fukushima Daiichi disaster. She has presented her work in artist-run spaces, museums and galleries in New York, Chicago, Boston, Varanasi, Prague and Hiroshima, as well as at conferences in the US and UK. She came to Chicago in 2015 and received two graduate degrees as a merit scholar at The Art Institute. 

Pilsen Environmental Rights and Reform Organization (PERRO) is a grassroots community group of Pilsen residents that formed in 2004 to fight the disproportionate amount of pollution in the Pilsen neighborhood. PERRO believes all people have the right to live in a clean and healthy environment, regardless of their race and class. Its mission is to spread awareness about this concept of environmental justice and make Pilsen a healthier place to live, work, and raise children.

Kim Wasserman - Executive Director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

Kim is the Executive Director of the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO), where she has worked since 1998. Kim joined LVEJO as an organizer and helped to organize community leaders to successfully build a new playground, community gardens, remodel of a local school park and force a local polluter to upgrade their facilities to meet current laws. As Executive Director of LVEJO, she has worked with organizers to reinstate a job access bus line, build on the recent victory of a new 23 acre park to be built in Little Village, and continue the 10 plus year campaign that won the closure of the two local coal power plants to fight for remediation and redevelopment of the sites. Mrs. Wasserman is Chair of the Illinois Commission on Environmental Justice. In 2013, Mrs. Wasserman was the recipient of the Goldman Prize for North America. Her biggest accomplishment to date is raising three-community organizers aged 18, 11, and 8.

Moderator: Kyra Woods, Conservation Organizer, Sierra Club

Kyra currently coordinates the Ready for 100 campaign in Chicago. Recognizing the interdisciplinary nature of climate issues, Kyra works to strengthen exisiting partnerships and develop new ones across the city so that Chicago's clean energy transition will be centered upon values of solidarity, innovation and equity. 

PANELISTS:

• Jahmal Cole - CEO & Founder: My Block My Hood My City

• Judith Helfand - Director/Producer, COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

• Juliana Pino MPP, MS - Policy Director, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization

• Susy Schultz - Public Narrative

MODERATOR:

• Sylvia Ewing - Strategic Communications, Marketing, and Outreach Director, Elevate Energy
  

Jahmal Cole - CEO & Founder: My Block My Hood My City

A champion of social justice, Jahmal Cole’s mission is to build a more interconnected Chicago on the pillars of service and education.

As the founder and CEO of the city’s fastest growing social impact organization, My Block My Hood My City, Jahmal is the creator of an exposure-based education program for teens and a network of volunteer initiatives that serve Chicago communities year-round.

Traveling, youth mentorship and community organizing are the subjects of Jahmal’s highly acclaimed books and speeches. He has spoken to audiences ranging from high school students to the Mayor of Chicago.

Jahmal is most recently the recipient of the 2019 Champion of Freedom Award from Mayor Rahm Emanuel, the 2018 Chicago Defender Men of Excellence Honoree, and the 2018 Chicago City Council Resolution Award. In 2018, he was also named one of the “20 Most Inspiring Chicagoans” by Streetwise Magazine and a Chicagoan of the Year by Chicago Magazine.

Sylvia Ewing, Strategic Communications, Marketing, and Outreach Director at Elevate Energy

Sylvia Ewing serves as the Strategic Communications, Marketing, and Outreach Director at Elevate Energy. Sylvia has worked on both sides of the microphone, helping nonprofits communicate effectively, implement strategic plans, manage change, and produce events and as an award-winning journalist. She was formerly an adjunct professor at Columbia College Chicago, teaching courses on Leadership and Management in the Business and Entrepreneurship Department. Sylvia has developed accessible affordable housing and worked for positive change in reproductive rights, and in public education. As a consultant, she has produced countless successful public and private events at venues around the city, as well as raised significant revenue for her clients and employers. Sylvia can be seen on WTTW and around the country as an on-air television host for PBS fundraising specials.

Sylvia has a focus on the use of appreciative inquiry, mission and value-based communications and meeting people where they are. Sylvia is an inductee in The HistoryMakers African American archives for media. Sylvia is a certified meditation teacher and the author of Comfort and Joy: Stories of Hope Meditations for Happiness. She is also a popular moderator and keynote speaker, reaching thousands of people each year on behalf of various civic and cultural groups.

Juliana Pino - Policy Director, Little Village Environmental Justice Organization (LVEJO)

Born in Tuluá, Colombia, and raised in both Colombia and the United States, Juliana’s personal life is transnational and her background is interdisciplinary. At LVEJO, Juliana analyzes, researches, and advocates for environmental justice in local, state, and federal policy. LVEJO campaigns cross many areas of environmental policy, including energy systems, food systems, water quality, air quality, brownfields, toxics, land use, transportation, and others. Her work focuses on: advancing energy democracy and community self-determination in regulatory and policy arenas; creating just transition with meaningful collaborative and participatory management of shared environmental resources; and centering frontline community leaders as generators of transformative policy ideas and governance models. Additionally, Juliana is committed to facilitating and cultivating processes that promote social justice and public health, has experience in multi-party negotiation and mediation, and works to build robust decision-making frameworks that center the perspectives of those most affected by both broader structural oppression and the specific policies being deliberated.

In 2017, Juliana was recognized in Midwest Energy News 40 Under 40 for her work in the transition to a clean energy economy as lead negotiator for low-income programs in the 2016 Future Energy Jobs Act. In 2018, she was named one of Grist’s 50 Fixers for her work in making the world a more just and sustainable place for all. She serves on the Board of Directors of the Illinois Environmental Council, a statewide organization that promotes sound environmental policy and protections for land, air, water, wildlife, and human health. Juliana is a graduate of the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment (MS, Environmental Policy and Planning; Environmental Justice), the University of Michigan Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy (MPP, Public Policy Analysis), and the University of Chicago (AB, East Asian Languages and Civilizations). Prior to joining LVEJO, Juliana has contributed to the U.S. Department of Commerce’s National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the Great Lakes Commission, and the U.S.-China Chamber of Commerce, among others. Juliana is guided by anti-oppression, is invested in anti-racism movement struggles, and is a big fan of animals.

Susy Schultz - President, Public Narrative

Susy Schultz is the president of Public Narrative, where we teach people in nonprofits and journalists better storytelling techniques to change the public narrative on racism, sexism and xenophobia. 

She’s worked in journalism, academia, government, nonprofits, the foundation world and business. A journalist for several decades, her past titles include managing editor, associate publisher, digital editor, investigative editor, reporter, columnist and editorial writer. She was just starting out in journalism during the heatwave of 1995. She is fluent in Spanish, lives in Chicago, is AWJ Chicago chapter’s founding president, past president of JAWS, a member of IRE and NABJ, as well as a mother, wife, reader and yoga enthusiast. Follow her on Twitter: @Susys.

PARTICIPANTS:

• Fenell Doremus - Producer, COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

• Judith Helfand - Director/Producer, COOKED: Survival by Zip Code

• Dr. Linda Rae Murray, M.D. MPH, F.A.C.P. - Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Illinois School of Public Health

• Orrin Williams - Food Systems Coordinator, Chicago Partnership for Health Promotion

MODERATOR:

• Pamela Sherrod Anderson - Award-winning writer, filmmaker, playwright, journalist and educator

Pamela Sherrod Anderson - Award-winning writer, filmmaker, playwright, journalist and educator

She is the Creative Committee co-chair on the board of Kartemquin Films and a graduate of Community Film Workshop’s and Kartemquin Films’ Diverse Voices in Documentary program, where she developed The G Force documentary on the challenges of grandparents raising grandchildren. The G Force, an audience favorite at the Black Harvest Film Festival, made its debut at the Gene Siskel Film Center last August and kicked off this year’s Chicago Public Library’s Best of Black Harvest summer film series. Her first feature-length documentary, The Curators of Dixon School, was shown at the Siskel in 2012, voted Best Feature by audiences at the Black Harvest Film Festival, received three-out-of-four star praise from film critic Roger Ebert, and was a selection for the New Teachers Conference sponsored by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Pamela’s stage plays have been produced at Transient Theater. As a journalist, she has been an editor, reporter, photographer and features staff writer at national and international publications including the Chicago Tribune and United Press International. She has been a contributing writer to Essence Magazine and to the book, “Black Women’s Health: Speaking for Ourselves.” She also has contributed to the White House years research for the Emmy-awarded WTTW-TV documentary, “Paper Trail: The First 100 Years of the Chicago Defender.” As an educator, she teaches in the College of Computing and Digital Media at DePaul University, and in the Chicago Housing Authority and DePaul University Teen Girls summer filmmaking program. 

Dr. Linda Rae Murray, M.D. MPH, F.A.C.P. - Adjunct Assistant Professor, University of Illinois School of Public Health

Dr. Murray has spent her career serving the medically under served. She has worked in a variety of settings including practicing Occupational Medicine at a Workers Clinic in Canada, Residency Director for Occupational Medicine at Meharry Medical College, and Bureau Chief for the Chicago Department of Health under Mayor Harold Washington. Dr. Murray worked as Medical Director of the federally funded health center, Winfield Moody, serving Cabrini Green Public Housing Project in Chicago. Dr. Murray has been an active member of a wide range of local and national organizations including serving as a member of the Board of Scientific Counselors for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR), and the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) and the Board of Directors of Trinity Health ( a large Catholic Health system).

In 1997 Dr. Murray returned to the Cook County Health System where she served as Chief Medical Officer - Primary Care for the twenty three primary care and community health centers comprising the Ambulatory & Community Health Network of the Cook County Bureau of Health Services; and as an attending physician in the Division of Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Cook County Hospital. The Cook County Health and Hospitals System is one of the nation’s largest public system of medical care and operates two hospitals, the public health department for suburban Cook County, health services a County Jail and the network of health Centers (ACHN) operated by the County. Dr. Murray has worked in leadership roles in many public health organizations including NACCHO’s (National Association of City & County Health Officers) Health Equity and Social Justice Team, the national executive board of APHA. During 2011 she served as President of the American Public Health Association. In December 2014, she retired from her position as the Chief Medical officer for the Cook County Department of Public Health of the Cook County Health & Hospital System , the PHAB accredited and state certified public health department for suburban Cook County. In December 2018 Dr. Murray stopped seeing patients as a voluntary attending in Internal Medicine ending over forty years of clinical practice.

Today she serves as an Honorary Attending of Cook County Health and is an Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Illinois School of Public Health (Occupational & Environmental Health and Health Policy & Administration Departments). She serves on many local and national boards including the Chicago based Health and Medicine Policy Research Group; and chairs the board for the National Collaborative for Health Equity. She remains passionate about increasing the number of Black and Latino health professionals and serves on the Urban Health Program Community Advisory Committee at the University of Illinois. Dr. Murray is devoting the rest of her career to being an enthusiastic full time trouble maker. She has been a voice for social justice and health as a basic human right for over fifty years.

Orrin Williams - Food Systems Coordinator, Chicago Partnership for Health Promotion

Orrin Williams is the Food Systems Coordinator who joined the Chicago Partnership for Health Promotion in July of 2015. He received a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from Northeastern Illinois University in December of 1983. As the Food Systems Coordinator Orrin will be seeking partnerships with various segments of the food system such as community gardens and urban farms to promote CPHP program interventions. He has been an advocate for urban agriculture, food security, and food access and food sovereignty for over 25 years. 

Currently, under development are curricula and research on container vegetable gardening as a means to increase food access, lower food costs, and mitigating potential food emergencies via self-sufficiency and interdependent gardening.

Orrin has also been active in the environmental justice movement for decades. He has contributed a chapter entitled, “Food and Justice: The Critical Link to Healthy Communities” in Power, Justice, and the Environment: A Critical Appraisal of the Environmental Justice Movement Edited by David N. Pellow and Robert J. Brulle MIT Press 2005, linking food policy on many levels to environmental justice among other writings.

Orrin is currently writing a series of essays for a book to be published in 2019 entitled “The Spirits Told Me to Tell You”.