On a Wednesday around 4:30 p.m., four Frederick Douglass High School students met at a new youth development nonprofit in Austin to build walkie talkies from a kit of wooden blocks and circuit boards. The after-school project for those interested in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math is just one of the offerings at A New Beginning Starts Now.
A New Beginning Starts Now opened on Chicago Avenue in January after Eric McKennie founded the nonprofit and received a state grant to fund its launch at the end of last year. The nonprofit aims to give back to the community’s youth through STEM education, life skill development, job readiness, mentoring and vocational training referrals.
“Everything I do is a giveaway,” McKennie said. “That’s what the money is for,” from the walkie-talkie kits to recording equipment for an upcoming podcast with young hosts, to free weekend events.
A New Beginning Starts Now’s first event was a free skate jam in February that was attended by over 100 people. On Saturday, the nonprofit is partnering with 15 vendors to collect items for a closet and toiletry pantry, and host a resource and job fair, at Austin College Career High School from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m. In June, the nonprofit will host a summer kick-off event at La Follete Park.
Through get-togethers in Austin and programming at A New Beginning Starts Now’s headquarters, the nonprofit aims to teach anti-bullying and conflict resolution.
“The pinnacle doesn’t really get higher than that in our community because everything is so violent,” McKennie said.
McKennie, 62, is a contractor by trade and has been flipping houses for over 20 years. He’s worked for the Illinois Department of Transportation’s office of business and workforce development, Chicago’s street operations department, and was an administrative assistant for the Chicago City Council. In 2007, McKennie ran for alderman of the 37th Ward, but lost against Emma Mitts, who has been alderman since 2000. He’s also married to state Sen. Kimberly Lightford.
For years, McKennie volunteered as a Chicago precinct captain on the West Side, going door to door to connect with residents and asking about what they needed help with. Serving as a liaison between committee people and the community, McKennie said it’s an experience that has translated to his new nonprofit.
“Over time, you win people over,” McKennie said. After several visits to one home, he persuaded a man who was hitting his wife to attend a counseling meeting with him. At another, he helped a couple to get their water turned back on after the city shut it off. “You have to go in and assess the needs to be able to do something about it,” he said.
McKennie said he wasn’t necessarily looking to start a nonprofit, but it seemed like an obvious next step in his career.
“I was cut from a cloth of service,” McKennie said. “It was an avenue to keep doing what I’ve been doing.”
He said he chose the nonprofit’s name because of how applicable it is.
“If you think about it, it fits every facet of your life,” McKennie said. “A new beginning starts every day when you wake up.”
Or it can start when you learn a new life lesson – something McKennie hopes to instill in the young people he meets.
For example, McKennie organizes field trips to the intersection of 1st Avenue and Lake Street in Maywood, where a monument marks the spot where Ten Mile Freedom House once existed, a haven for runaway slaves on the Underground Railroad.
McKennie said that he makes every young person he takes there put their hands on the monument’s rocks and promise to never hurt another person, outside of self-defense.
“If you should ever raise a harmful hand to another human being, how dare you. You stood on this sacred ground and you took this oath,” McKennie said, hoping the promise sticks with them in a decisive moment later in life. “It might hit something in their mind and make them say, ‘You know what? I’m going to let this guy live… This is something [Eric] instilled inside of me.’”