Participants Pick Up New Skills At 'Learnapalooza'
CHICAGO (CBS) -- Chicago is well-known for its summer street festivals, usually filled with food and music. Over the past couple of years, a new kind of festival has taken shape.
It's called "Learnapalooza." For one day, volunteers offer to teach a skill to whoever wants to listen – for free. Participants can learn beekeeping, how to make bacon, play backgammon and a host of other skills.
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Northbrook native Ben Paul is the co-founder of Communiteach, which hosted this year's festival on June 25 in the Wicker Park neighborhood. He says Communiteach and Learnapalooza encourage people to get off their computers and meet face to face.
"We appreciate Web sites that facilitate people meeting in real life, like Meet Up and Couch Surfing," he saod. "We want to be part of that trend, of organizing real-life social interaction to get people away from their computers."
Right now, Communiteach is available in Chicago and Pittsburgh. Paul says he eventually hopes to reach other large cities.
