Bethel New Life, Inc.
CHICAGO, IL
Mission
Bethel New Life empowers individuals, strengthens families, and rebuilds west side neighborhoods through community driven, solution-oriented, and value centered approaches.
Vision
Bethel New Life, Inc. deploys a network of wellness partnership programs and initiatives that prepare individuals, families, and neighborhoods to be healthy and well through all stages of life.
Bethel New Life Inc.
Message from Bethel New Life CEO & President
Greetings to all who share a connection to Chicago’s West Side. I am Sharif Walker, President and CEO at Bethel New Life, Inc. An organization with a rich and deeply rooted history of providing holistic wellness services to those individuals and families with the most need. I am honored to serve community from a position of great responsibility and expectation.
My family moved to the West Side in the early nineteen-nineties. Recommitted in marriage after over a decade of divorce, my parents having endured early career and economic challenges found themselves in a more stable position to support our family and searched for a home that represented that new-found stability. The one caveat that accompanied that search was that it be in a community that needed the same supports that were available in the economically challenged community of my childhood; good neighbors with strong family values that together formed a support network forged with shared resource and resiliency. The community was Austin!
Continue Message...
Today, my family remains in Austin. As an intergenerational household, we occupy the same home that we purchased thirty-something years ago. A home where I raised my daughter who graduated from Michelle Clark High School during the onset of the pandemic in 2020. Covid, George Floyd and other substantial occurrence uncovered a number of underlying inequities within our communities. And now it is incumbent upon those of us in positions of responsibility to form a new culture of wellness that moves us into more healthy community constructs for our individuals and families. I stand with the many that accept that challenge.
The Mildred Wiley Wellness Hub initiative is a program through partnerships model. Bethel’s commitment, my personal and professional commitment to action shaped around the concept of ‘from those who drive in from home to work at our local schools, and other key businesses, to those who stand as legacy residents, your personal and family wellness matters!’
Sharif Walker
Values
At Bethel New Life, our values and philosophy aim to provide comprehensive care that addresses 10 different dimensions of wellness. We believe that by taking a holistic approach to health, we can more effectively serve our community and help individuals achieve their best possible quality of life.
Social Wellness
The ability to relate to and connect with other people in our world.
Spiritual Wellness
The ability to establish peace and harmony in our lives.
Emotional Wellness
The ability to understand ourselves and cope with the challenges life can bring.
Physical Wellness
The ability to maintain a healthy quality of life without undue fatigue or physical stress.
Environmental Wellness
The ability to recognize our own responsibility for the quality of the environment that surrounds us.
Intellectual Wellness
The ability to open our minds to new ideas and experiences that can be applied to personal decisions, group interaction and community betterment.
Occupational Wellness
The ability to get personal fulfillment from our jobs or chosen career fields while still maintaining balance in our lives.
Financial Wellness
The ability to identify your relationship with money and skills in managing resources. An intricate balance of the mental, spiritual, and physical aspects of money.
Civic Wellness
The ability to feel obligated, responsible and deserving of one’s right and duties of citizenship, and of how government works.
Creative Wellness
The ability to express oneself in a highly diverse range of human activities engaged in creating visual, auditory, or performed artifacts.
Bethel New Life History
Founding
Bethel New Life was birthed out of the ministry of Bethel Lutheran Church in the West Garfield Park community in the 1970’s. This was a time when a loss of working-class jobs, racial tension, and
poverty severely impacted the community. By 1979 the area was losing approximately 200 housing units per year to demolition, had no local bank, no major grocery store, few good doctors, and too few jobs.
In 1979 Bethel Housing was founded when the church bought an abandoned 3-flat from HUD for $250 and through sweat equity restored the building. The process of accomplishing the restoration triggered a continuation of restoring homes through the work of church members and neighbors desiring to see their community restored while teaching new employable skills.
First Grant
In 1982 Bethel Housing became Bethel New Life and continued to address the diverse needs of the community with the expansion of programs and services being provided. In addition to the housing restoration a number of programs were added: senior home repair, weatherization, a food co-op, adult day care, a holistic health center, employment services and small business assistance, childcare and early learning, senior housing, and more.
Land Purchase
In 1989 Bethel New Life was able to purchase the campus of the former St. Anne’s Hospital which had closed the previous year. The campus was repurposed to provide housing, office space, plus a wide variety of other community services.
Since 1979, Bethel has earned a national reputation for cutting edge initiatives and pioneering approaches that build on the people, physical assets, and faith base of the community. Bethel strives to turn problems into possibilities through community efforts that arise out of commitment to self help and self determination with community-based, value-centered, solution oriented initiatives.
PARTNERSHIP AND DEVELOPMENT
The 1990’s saw Bethel continue to be engaged in community advocacy and development. This included partnering with Bigelow Homes in the construction of new energy efficient homes, development of the Youth Enterprise Network, a welfare to work initiative, and anti-crime/drug initiatives.
Once just a housing ministry, Bethel now supports a variety of community development and social service programs. From a mentoring program for youth to job training for the formerly incarcerated to living facilities for seniors, Bethel’s footprint on the West Side is vast. Over the last 32 years, Bethel’s journey has led to the creation of over 1,000 units of housing, 7,000 employed residents, and an array of community asset-building strategies.
Beth Anne Residences and Beth Anne Place
In 2003 Bethel opened Beth Anne Residences and Beth Anne Place providing independent and supportive living options for low-income seniors. In addition to Bethel New Life’s offices being on campus, Bethel began partnering with other community development organizations, whose missions and services were in alignment with Bethel’s mission, by providing space on the campus at below market costs to bring new programs and expertise to our community.
Thus, the campus concept was born. Bethel brought together a wide variety of organizations providing needed services, and coordinates and manages those relationships. Some of the organizations currently partnering on the Bethel New life Campus include; U of I Extension providing cooking and nutrition education; Project Exploration providing STEM programing for elementary students; Chicago Botanical Garden/Windy City Harvest teaching gardening and healthy food choices; Amazon/Amazon Fresh partnering with Bethel in the Daily Bready Food Pantry.
Mildred Wiley Wellness Campus (MWWC)
The Mildred Wiley Wellness Campus (MWWC) is inspired by the life and work of Mildred Wiley, an Austin community leader and activist who was dedicated to improving quality of life. Wiley also served as the Senior Director of Community Services at Bethel New Life before her passing in 2019. The Bethel New Life campus is located at the 4900 block of West Thomas and Division Streets, between Lamon and Lavergne Avenues, and is the location for the MWWH.
The MWWH’s goal is to provide opportunities to improve some or all of the “8 Dimensions of Wellness”. The heart of the campus will be the urban farm and will be the catalyst for the phases of the proposal:
- Phase 0.5 (Summer 2021): New garden beds and therapeutic horticulture activities in the Courtyard.
- Phase 1 (2021-2022): Expansion of the Courtyard Garden and creation of a new Horticulture Center (Horticenter), with space for classes and further gardening.
- Phase 2 (TBD): Expansion of the campus beyond the courtyard with landscaped parks/plazas, fitness center, café, new landscaped access point from Division St. and more.
2021 brought the Phase I of the development of the Mildred Wiley Wellness Campus (MWWC).