Menu

Kaitlin Sobeck-Kim

About Kaitlin Sobeck-Kim

Posts by Kaitlin Sobeck-Kim:

Screenshot 2025-10-01 at 10.08.56 AM

Bronzeville Community Garden Celebrates 5th Anniversary Harvest Festival

Bronzeville Community Garden Celebrates 5th Anniversary Harvest Festival

Local news station spreads the news of NCO’s 5th anniversary of the garden and upcoming harvest festival.  Check out the news article here.

Committed to creating restorative spaces for youth and adults, alike, New Community Outreach takes a collaborative approach to community engagement. A cornerstone of the organization’s efforts is its thriving community garden, which is currently in its fifth season of harvest.

Thoughtfully located in an area where food deserts pose a challenge, the garden is a vital resource for the neighborhood.

“We can all benefit from having more access to fresh produce, especially in the urban scape,” said Sonia Wang, executive director, New Community Outreach.

Situated beside Jackie Robinson Elementary School at 43rd Street and Lake Park Avenue, the garden has provided residents with a true “garden-to-table” experience throughout the summer, fostering a deeper connection to fresh, homegrown produce.

New Community Outreach (NCO) was formed in 2017, but its garden sprouted during the pandemic.

“The idea is, yes, come by, work in the garden, grab some produce, but also just linger, to be present and be able to connect with one another,” said Wang.

Run entirely by volunteers, the garden offers an array of produce from tomatoes, turnips, and basil to kale, collards, carrots, and more.

Sometimes, young students even help in the garden, utilizing the space as an educational tool during school.

“Anybody at any age, to be able to see creation come to life is a beautiful thing,” said Wang.

Every Saturday, rain or shine, volunteers come together during the growing season to pack and distribute bags filled with freshly harvested fruits, vegetables, and herbs.

The organization partners with The Farm in Westmont, which offers supplemental produce items for the distribution bags.

“There is no cost, no stipulation,” said Wang. “It’s really about all of us participating together.”

As the weather cools, the organization, known as NCO, is gearing up for its “Fall Harvest Festival” on Saturday, Oct. 5 from 10 to 11 a.m., where it will share the fruits of its labor.

“This is kind of our garden distribution—amplified,” said Wang.

There, community members will be able to enjoy homegrown produce, garden tastings, apple cider, music, and most importantly, time well spent together.

“Being able to build relationships, so if that’s something that’s your jam, we want you to engage with us,” said Wang.

For those unable to attend the festival, NCO will host three additional smaller scale produce distribution days on Saturdays throughout October.

To join NCO’s message center and receive notifications about produce distribution days, text @NCOGarden to 81010.

For more information about NCO, click HERE.

Restorative Spaces

Restorative Spaces

New Community Outreach creates and cultivates restorative spaces for healing, reconciliation and flourishing. We envision a Bronzeville where youth and other community members meet trauma with restorative justice in order to renew relationships (with ourselves, our neighbors, and our environments) which lead to our individual and collective flourishing.

Here’s a peak at how we are living out our mission and vision…

KEY Summer Leadership Program: This summer, 10 student participants, 2 student interns, and 2 senior interns learned about the interconnectedness of our individual selves and our community as a step to activate change as leaders. We grew as a community, delving into topics such as race as a social construct, transgenerational trauma, growing in knowledge of our community’s history in order to participate in collective healing, and more. We learned from guest speakers in the fields of community leadership, mental health, and violence prevention and by going on a bus tour of Bronzeville & its surrounding neighborhood led by The Chicago Race Riot of 1919 Commemoration Project. 

After several skills workshops organized by the Chicago Bulls Community Relationsteam, our cohort successfully pitched a community impact project that centered around the need to create safe spaces for their teen peers to discuss difficult topics like mental health, homelessness, safety, and needing mentors, and connect teens to resources in these areas. Students came to consensus on addressing the harms that have been caused in their community as a result of the lack of guidance teens are receiving and the lack of resources their peers are actively accessing and utilizing. 

By the end of the 7-week program, the cohort worked with professional videographers to produce and launch four videos which connects to their linktreethat has been intentionally curated to direct teens to local resources in these four areas.  All videos are available on our social media platforms, and the cohort aims to keep the conversation active so that there is a platform for youth to discuss personal experiences rather than repress them. The videos have collectively generated just over 4000 views. 

   

Above: Cohort 4 gathers in their “Teens Matter” team shirts (left); Amarion, Kai, Kayla, and Jacinta film their video about the importance of talking about our mental health while Jabari directs from behind the scene. 
Newsletter Header: Students learn about the many ways we can embody the spirit of change agents from State Representative Curtis Tarver. 

Huge appreciation to all of the partners, in particular the Bright Star Community Outreach and Chicago Bulls Community Relations, for your support with this year’s Summer Leadership Program!

Annual Back to School Fun Fair:  On Saturday, August 5, we welcomed over 220 community members to our annual event (over 300 people participated in the event)! Students, families, and neighbors gathered to play games for prizes; receive giveaways, including backpacks, books, & school supplies donated by Chicago Public Schools Family & Community Engagement, Illinois Action for Children, Lake Meadows Retail Center, Open Books, & Timothy Community Corporation; learn about & receive resources from community partners, such as Greater Chicago Food Depository, Intonation Music, UIC College of Dentistry, & more; and enjoy food and music! We are so grateful to all of our community partners and volunteers for making this event come to life, including Aetna Better Health, Chicago Fire Department, University of Chicago Comer Pediatric Mobile Medical Unit, Hinsdale Covenant Church, Ignite, our host – Jackie Robinson Elementary School, New Community Covenant Church, and more! We hope to see you [again] next year! 
  

Garden to Table Program: We are already three months into our harvest and distribution season. We have grown an amazing amount of greens, herbs, tomatoes, radishes, turnips, carrots, and more! With our partnership with The Farm (produce), Hyde Park Vineyard Church (non-perishables), and the help of amazing volunteers, we have distributed over 450 bags of produce and non-perishables so far. We also hosted our first Harvest Festival last month, and welcomed Illinois Treasurer Frerichs and his team to our event! Thanks to their support of our program. We will continue to provide produce & non-perishables through the end of October. 

 

We believe in the healing, hope, and peace that can be tangibly experienced as we continue to cultivate these restorative spaces for our youth and community members. Thank you for all the ways you support this work and partner with us. 

With gratitude,
Sonia Wang, NCO Executive Director
image

KEY Continues To Expand

I recently read an article in one of our local newspapers about the impact of trauma on young people. The reporter spent time with a few youth who’d each been impacted by gun violence. Their painful experience demonstrated how traumatic events ripple through a person’s life. These young people’s relationships, engagement at school, and overall sense of stability are all affected. Of course, this impact is even more pronounced when a young person has to face the possibility of violence on a regular basis.

Trauma is never the entire story. The young women and men we get to work with through our KEY Program are each full of hopes and dreams for their futures. It’s an incredible honor to be a part of their lives.

This year, our KEY Program has doubled in size to almost 50 students. The need is even greater, but that is what we have the capacity for at this time. Thanks to your generosity, every week at Dyett High School, students are gathering to build peace: in their lives, their school, and beyond. Under the leadership of our Executive Director, Markeyta Boone, and our two new facilitators who you’ll meet below, these young men and women are finding ways to orient themselves toward hope despite the trauma they face.