Hello, I am a student at Global Citizenship Experience lab school. I am in a class called "Art of Rhetoric", and in this class, we have been learning about the rhetorical appeals of Pathos, Logos, and Ethos, as well as rhetorical devices such as metaphors and similies. Rhetoric can be used to persuade people to do bad things or good things, it all depends on how good your rhetoric is. Our class went on a few field experiences in order to see for ourselves how people in the world use rhetoric. We have also been focusing on housing in particular as an issue, so we went and visited the 33rd ward "working families", and the 48th ward assembly. They spoke to us about the issues in their wards and how they take action to create change. In order to learn how to use rhetoric and take action for ourselves, our Action Project for this unit is to create a canvassing script for an issue related to housing in our ward. For my Action Project, I decided to promote making affordable housing a part of the Galewood neighborhood, taking advantage of the space that Mars Wrigley will be giving to the community in a couple years.
Here is my script:
Hey there! Do you have some time? I’d like to speak a bit about The Chocolate Factory in the Galewood neighborhood.
I’ve lived right across the street from the Mars Chocolate Factory for 5 years now, and Mars has been the icing on the cake in our beautiful neighborhood. Did you know, that Mars Wrigley has decided to move out of the building?
Did you know that you have a voice in deciding what comes next?
Kindly, Mars Wrigley will be donating the 20 acres of space to the community, so we actually have the opportunity to get a say in what happens to the area.
You are a part of the Galewood neighborhood; how do you feel about the Mars Chocolate factory moving out?
-What are some things that you think could go well in that space or what do you think we need in the neighborhood?
How do you feel about affordable housing becoming a part of what the space holds? Is it something you don't like the idea of, something you would like to be added, or is it something that you are just open to…?
The are 280 jobs being lost because of this move, and a lot of the workers in the chocolate factory moved to the neighborhood in order to live close to work, or residents of the neighborhood got a job at the chocolate factory in order to work close to home.
When that many people lose their jobs at the factory, what do you think will happen to them?
If they don’t get a high-paying job before that time, they will not be able to afford to rent a house in the neighborhood anymore.
There are 2o acres of space that Mars Wrigley donated to us, “for the use of the community”. The building takes up ⅓ of that space, which is still a lot. There can be a section of the building dedicated to affordable housing, or there can be new buildings or houses built in some of the other free space. A part of this land can easily be used for affordable housing and a community center with job opportunities. This would solve the problem of people losing their jobs and possibly their homes. Imagine if you lost both your job and home in the neighborhood you know and love.
Galewood's board of directors has been meeting and submitting surveys to hundreds of neighbors. Maybe you are one of them?
A community center for senior citizens/youth programs has been voted 2nd by the residents of Galewood. The people want to create spaces that help the community, and what helps the community more than providing affordable housing and jobs for the part of our community that needs it?
A few of the highest-voted ideas for the community have been restaurants and a candy museum. If the workers at the Mars Chocolate Factory do end up staying in the community by using the affordable housing that we provide them, they would be able to have very easy access to restaurants (to either eat or work at them), and they would be the perfect candidates for working at the candy museum. They would already be familiar with the space! It would be like teachers changing their job to teach teachers how to teach.
Now by adding affordable housing to the neighborhood, the property value in the neighborhood may decrease. But considering all the additions to help the community thrive, like community centers, restaurants, and a candy museum, it is likely that those additions will even out the property values in the neighborhood. This means we will be able to have affordable housing in the neighborhood while keeping the property values relatively the same.
Plus you will have access to a lot more restaurants!
Here is the petition for making affordable housing a part of Galewood, if you would like to sign it. Your opinion matters, make sure to get involved in this communal decision-making process. Here is the contact information of the board of directors, and our alder, Chris Taliaferro. Thank you so much for your time!
This is the design for my campaigning button:
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| NM, "affordable housing", 2022 |
This has been a fun action project for me. I liked that I got to explore something that affects my life, the Mars Chocolate Factory moving out. It made writing the script a lot easier since it was something that I care about. I also liked reciting my script with my classmates in order to get feedback. Lastly I loved that we had to make a design for our campaigning. It made the project feel complete. Writing can be difficult sometimes and it is nice to throw in some graphic design while still using rhetoric we learned. Thank you for reading my blog and I hope you liked my canvassing!
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