Someone You Should Know: Brainerd Park Alumni Association
CHICAGO (CBS) -- They lived in the neighborhood when they were growing up. But, unlike a lot of people, they did not forget where they came from.
Members of the Brainerd Park Alumni Association are all someone you should know, CBS 2's Harry Porterfield reports.
Their roots are deep in the community, and they feel a duty to volunteer to help make the South Side neighborhood a better place.
Marcelle Battle is the organizations president.
"Most of us are from this community. We've been in this community for 40 years and over the past we've seen our community go down a little bit," he says. "So, we're here to uplift our community and let the kids know it can be as good as you make it."
Founded two years ago, the organization comprises 150 members who either still live or formerly lived in the area bounded by 87th to 95th streets and Ashland to Vincennes.
Currently the organization is cleaning up an area that was once a street between a Chicago public school and park district property, which neither claims.
The organization also mentors neighborhood kids who are enlisted to help out.
"Since you live in a black community you need to make it clean as possible … if you want more people to live in the community," Michael Rucker says.
Wilburt Keys represents a senior group called the Community Relations Council, which has joined forces with the Brainerd alumni.
Besides cleanup, the group promotes community activities like picnics, along with programs to create a safer neighborhood by decreasing crime.
"A lot of guys talk about, ��Oh, I would come back. I'm going to give to the community.' And you never see them," Ald. Howard Brookins Jr. says. "These guys came back in a real way, and they are doing great things with kids."
