Moy Mendez
Moy Mendez, The Hope Center, Blue Island, Illinois
The Hope Center is a "community center born out of a local church with the mission to empower neighbors to become creators and leaders through programs in agriculture, technology and auto mechanics." Originally a food pantry, Founder and Executive Director Moy Mendez reframed the mission to address food insecurity on a deeper level and to offer neighbors options for work and learning that could instill real hope in the struggling community of Blue Island, IL.
Olatunji Oboi Reed
Olatunji Oboi Reed, Equiticity, Chicago, Illinois
Olantunji Oboi Reed is the President & CEO, of Equiticity, a racial equity movement. The Freedom & Culture Bicycle Cooperative is Equiticity's vision for manufacturing bicycles in the North Lawndale neighborhood on the Westside of Chicago. Explicitly developed to remove the generational cycle of poverty, create living wage jobs, provide transferable and career oriented job skills to young adults, reduce hyper-local violence, and improve health and transportation related outcomes, all focused at the hyper-local, neighborhood level, the cooperative will manufacture beautifully designed, well built, and premium priced bicycles in North Lawndale. Young adults from the neighborhood will be worker-owners of the cooperative and will share collectively in the profits.