Skyline Newspaper

On Thursday, May 14, Chicago kicked off its annual Craft Beer Week to celebrate some of the Windy City’s finest independent breweries and the endless varieties of stouts, IPAs, witbiers and pale ales they offer.

According to My Fox Chicago, this year’s 10-day celebration features more than 400 different events throughout Chicago and its suburbs, from beer tastings to competitions to determine the best brew of them all.

This year, beer enthusiasts can even check out which microbrews are most popular in each of Chicago’s many iconic neighborhoods with an interactive map developed by Lakeshore Beverage just for Craft Beer Week. For example, Lakeview residents prefer fruity beers, while those living in the West Side Austin neighborhood love a good cider.

“Beer is very social. Bars are very social,” explained Chris Kolodziej of Lakeshore Beverage. “So we might have some people who really enjoy porters and are recommending them to their friends, and that style just kind of grows within a neighborhood,” Kolodziej said.

Chicago’s many craft beer breweries are just a small part of the booming national craft beer scene — over recent years, craft beer has become a $14.3 billion industry as more people prefer to drink more unique, locally made and higher-quality brews.

With massive events like Craft Beer Week, more and more people become exposed to the superior drinking experience that craft beers offer each year.

“We want to expose more and more people to craft beers,” said Doug Isley, co-owner of Aurora’s Hopvine Brewing Company, of craft beer’s growth. “There are a lot people who’ve already jumped onto that bandwagon, but there are a lot of macro beer drinkers who haven’t tried it yet. There are wine drinkers who don’t know the variety of flavors that are out there. The best way to do it is with various events.”

Chicago Craft Beer Week 2015 will come to a close on May 23 at the Welles Park Craft Beer Festival, where 50 of the city’s best independent breweries will have their finest brews on tap.

This week, Sangamon County will begin efforts to raise enough private funds to pay for the estimated $8.8 million needed to renovate the historic 160-year-old Illinois Executive Mansion in Springfield.

The Illinois Executive Mansion Association, a nonprofit organization, will host a cocktail party on Wednesday with guests such as Gov. Bruce Raunder and former Govs. Jim Edgar and Jim Thompson.

While an initial analysis of the mansion’s deteriorating condition resulted in an estimated $8.8 million in repair costs, those who organized the private fundraising campaign anticipate the figure to be much higher once restoration experts release a more detail report later this month. In addition, officials only expect the cost of repairs to increase the longer the property remains in limbo.

“The position of the board is, let’s do the whole job right, not just a patch again,” said Springfield businessman Andy Van Meter, who joined the mansion association’s board of trustees to assist with fundraising.

Lawmakers will be asked to highlight the mansion’s fundraising campaign with voters, but Rauner and his wife, Diana, who also serves as chairwoman of the mansion association board, have stood firm in their wish to rely solely on private donations, according to Van Meter. “It’s 100 percent private funding,” he said. “It will be through memberships to the association and donations to the association.”

Just last year, $2.4 million in emergency repairs for the mansion was approved but never actually spent. The mansion’s roof was, however, repaired last summer to prevent leaks that have continued to to cause damage to the walls, the floor to warp, and mold to grow in the basement. For most typical residential homes, the average cost to repair basement water damage hovers between $3,000 and $5,000.

In addition to a leaky roof and water damage, the mansion also has extensive wood decay, faded carpets, peeling paint layers, and severely outdated mechanical, electrical, plumbing, and heating and cooling systems.

Van Meter, whose mother served as chairwoman of the mansion association board for nearly three decades, is hopeful the renovations will foster a sense of community pride.

“It’s also being a citizen of Springfield,” Van Meter said, “and seeing the governor’s mansion turn into essentially a dilapidated property. As a matter of civic pride, I think a lot of people in the city of Springfield feel that something needs to be done about it.”

The board has already received a number of donations, and members are hopeful renovations will begin as early as this summer.

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“I feel like the kid in ‘Miracle on 34th Street,'” said Caress Pouncy, the new owner of a refurbished 2010 Nissan Altima as she received her keys at the Automechanika Chicago, the largest auto aftermarket trade show in the world. Not quite a miracle, her car was part of a wider effort by various organizations dedicated to fighting poverty.

The Chicago Tribune reports that Pouncy received the car on April 24th after being selected by Women With Drive (WWD) Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Chicago focusing on providing transportation to women mired in poverty. Her car was donated by the National Auto Body Council at the recommendation of WWD.

“The No. 1 reason welfare-to-work programs fail is because of unreliable transportation,” said Molly Cantrell-Kraig, founder of the WWD. “Communities have resources to train, suit and get women to the point where she can get a job, but transportation is where that process breaks down.”

Pouncy was accepted by the foundation after having shown that she not only faced severe obstacles during her life but that she is motivated to become self-sufficient. Pouncy, 28, was orphaned when she was 13 and has spent most of her life in homelessness. With her new car, however, she will be able to start her job as a welder at Midwest Fencing, becoming the first female welder the company has hired. She got the job with the assistance of the Jane Addams Resource Corporation.

“Now that I am receiving a car, I don’t have to look over my shoulder when I walk four blocks to the bus stop at five in the morning,” Pouncy said.

“Our role is to keep that woman moving forward,” said Cantrell-Kraig. “We’re not just about transportation, we’re about transformation.” She added that 56% of American adults living in poverty are women.

Indeed, the United States faces a significant homelessness problem. A Department of Housing and Urban Development report found that close to 600,000 people are homeless on any given night. There are 440,000 people in Philadelphia alone who live under the federal poverty line.