BAPA Staff Profile: Meet Gary Jenkins, Education and Safety Program Coordinator 

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By Kristin Boza 

Last month, Gary Jenkins joined BAPA’s core team as the new Education and Safety Program Coordinator. In this role, Jenkins will be a resource for local schools and parents, as well as work with the 22nd District Police and 19th Ward Office to promote neighborhood safety initiatives. 

Jenkins has lived with his wife Sharon in the neighborhood for over 15 years and they have been married for nearly 19 years. Sharon is a South Side Chicago native but Jenkins is a New York City native, born in Harlem and raised in the Bronx.  

His background as an investigator for CPS and the Inspector General’s office, as well as a community leader has primed him to take on this new role. He is entering his second term as president of the Vanderpoel Improvement Association (VIA), and has served as the CAPS Beat Facilitator for Beat 2213 for the last 10 years. Knowing the ins and outs of the public school system allows him to knowledgeably develop key relationships with local public and private school principals and LSC groups. 

“I have a vast institutional knowledge of CPS, particularly when it comes to how parents, businesses and the community work with CPS,” he said. “With almost 40 years of work experience, I’ve worked with many different people in different environments and learned valuable ways to communicate with a variety of people.” 

BAPA’s initiatives to engage younger families in the Beverly/Morgan Park communities is integral to ensuring steady community support. Jenkins says he is looking forward to working with this population when it comes to questions about area schools and personal safety. 

As he begins his tenure at BAPA, Jenkins will be building relationships to find out what types of support schools need and how BAPA can help. He will also work with the safety committee to ensure it is a viable and long-lasting resource for the community. 

“I’m looking forward to getting out in the neighborhood and introducing myself. My goals are simple: to get out there and do good things,” Jenkins said. “I’ve been working in this community since we moved here and BAPA is a natural fit for me to expand my reach.” 

What’s the SCORE? Show Me the Money!

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By Kevin Scanlan, Certified SCORE Mentor 

One of the biggest challenges facing business owners is finding start-up and interim capital. My clients have used several sources to secure capital, usually requiring a combination of two or more.  

Self-funded. Usually owners need to have “skin-in-the-game,” using some of their own money as capital for the business.  Typically, this is only one source of funding. 

Family/friends. Family and friends are frequently a source of capital for a new or existing business.  I’ve seen this take many forms: out-right gift, low interest loan, equity, or silent or active participation in the business. 

Angel investors. There are firms and individuals who will invest in both start-up as well as existing businesses. These investments can be carried by the company as debt or may be offered in exchange for equity in the business. 

Crowdfunding. Crowdfunding is typically an internet–based platform where business owners seek individual investors who commit a much smaller amount of resources than angel investors. Some examples of these platforms include Seed Invest, GoFundMe, AngelList and Crowdcube. 

Public/private grants. There is a variety of public and private funding sources for new and existing business. The City of Chicago Small Business Center offers a variety of grants. The State of Illinois also provides a variety of grants, some that are industry–specific.  Special grants are available for military veterans, and women-owned and minority–owned businesses.  The Small Business Administration (SBA), which is a Resource Partner of SCORE, has the Small Business Investment Company and also offers Federal Finance Assistance Grants in a variety of industries.  Connect with the SBA at sba.gov. Private companies and foundations also offer grants. Examples are the Coca-Cola Foundation, FedEX Small Business Grant Contest and Lending Tree Small Business Grant Contest. 

Loans. The SBA) offers are variety of loans for small businesses through several local, regional and national banks.  Go to sba.gov to learn more. Several local, state and federal government agencies also offer loan programs. Private organizations including Accion (accionchicago.org), Kiva (kiva.org) Kabbage (kabbage.com), Bluevine (bluevine.com) and LendingClub (lendingclub.com) also offer loans.  

Note: References to private grant and lending organizations are simply offered as examples and not as endorsements from me or SCORE. 

People with business questions are welcome to contact me at kevin.scanlan@scorevolunteer.org for assistance.  My office hours at the Beverly Area Planning Association (BAPA) are on most Tuesday and Thursday mornings. 

WHAT’S THE SCORE?

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By Kevin Scanlan 

Certified SCORE Mentor 

The Tax Man Giveth and He Taketh Away 

It’s that time of year again, Income Tax Season.  As we prepare to file our 2018 taxes there are several changes to our tax laws and regulations that may impact you, both positively and negatively. NOTE: This article is not intended as legal or tax advice. You should always consult with your attorney, accountant or tax preparer to determine how the changes in the tax laws and regulations will impact you. 

Among the major changes in 2018 are the provisions contained in the Tax Cuts and Job Act of 2017. Many believe that these changes are the biggest changes enacted in many years. Here’s an overview of some of those changes and others: 

Standard business mileage deduction for 2018 is 54 cents per mile, 18 cents per mile driven for medical or moving purposes and 14 cents per mile driven in service of a charitable organization. 

With some exceptions, small pass-through businesses (those businesses that report their business income on their personal tax filing) are entitled to take a Qualified Business Income Deduction equal to 20% of the qualified business income. 

The new tax law increases the Estate Tax Exclusion, allowing small business owners to pass on more assets from their business to their heirs without incurring estate taxes. 

Depreciation is the common tax deduction for the gradual wear and tear on certain types of business assets, typically spread over the useful life of the asset. In 2015, Congress passed a law allowing for a 50% deduction in a single year. The new tax law increases the deduction to 100% in the first year.  This higher deduction is scheduled to decrease in future years. 

Some business deductions are gone or harder to take, including some business entertainment expenses.  Also impacted is Net Operating Loss Carryover. 

The maximum wage base for withholding Social Security has been increased in 2018. 

With few exceptions, the corporate tax rate has been adjusted to a flat 21%.   

If you are thinking of starting a business or need help in growing your current business and would like to schedule a meeting with me at BAPA, contact me at kevin.scanlan@scorevolunteer.org. 

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Christmas Past

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Christmas Night, 1929  

 

This holiday letter from the archives of the Ridge Historical Society was written by  Philip and Georgiana Yarrow just two months after the most devastating stock market crash in U.S. history launched the Great Depression, and yet it is sweet, poignant, and most especially, hopeful. The Yarrows lived near 111th and Longwood Drive, and he was the minister at the Morgan Park Congregational Church:  

 

“We are sitting around the Christmas Tree again. Children grown and gone. Just living over again tonight the days when Childhood’s Christmas joys brought to our hearts delights, immeasurably sweet and deep.

What a possession a child is, humbling, inspiring, strengthening, ennobling. Now we miss the children which this Christmas Tree symbolizes tonight.

They say that it is a waste to cut down this tree. If God took a thousand years to grow our tree, this tree is worth all His labor. Once growing on a hillside, now more alive than ever in our home.

See that old stuffed Santa Claus perched on a top limb? Mother bought that twenty years ago at Field’s. See that little tinsel ship? Mother bought that one Christmas Eve when she rushed out on North Clark Street and spent every cent she had left to make the Children happy. Look at all those balloons and globes, red and yellow and blue and green. Did Titian ever paint a lovelier picture? This tree is alive. The sparkle of the tinselled [sic] beauty is telling tonight some marvelous tales of memory when children looked and wondered. Oh, the mystic loveliness of this Christmas Tree!

Getting old and looking backward? Oh, no! Just the musing of a moment. We look forward with our dear friends to a greater tomorrow and would pray that together with you we may enter a New Year with hearts aglow with richer hope. The sands of time sink slowly but life with God under the guiding light of his son, Jesus Christ, becomes year by year higher, fuller, finer and more joyous.

Look, the logs in our hearth are blazing tonight with a strange brilliance! The Tree tells of yesterday. The hearth speaks of the joy we have in the warmth of friendships today and tomorrow. To our friends of all faiths, as we sit in the radiance of the Christmas Tree and the glow of the friendly hearth, a Happy New Year.

Philip Yarrow
Georgiana Yarrow

Getting Bookish, A Holiday Pop-Up

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By Carrie Channell 

Bookish, 9911 S. Wood, is not only the name of Beverly/Morgan Park’s newest pop-up, it also describes the owners Tara Baldridge and Angela Sherrill. Both women have extensive backgrounds in bookselling, writing, publishing and book marketing as well as being mothers of young children.  Bookish, a temporary store across from the 99th Street Metra Station, is set up for the 2018 holiday season. 

The intention behind Bookish is to create a community-focused destination to create experiences involving books. They will be offering Storytime at 2 p.m. and 4 p.m. Wed., Dec. 5, 12 and 19.  More than just reading stories to children, they will engage their listeners in discussions about the stories and characters. Their goals are exposing young readers to quality books they might not encounter elsewhere and helping them become better, more engaged readers. 

In keeping with the community destination focus, the store owners will be working with neighbor Cakewalk Chicago to present joint gingerbread activities. In conjunction with how-to make gingerbread structures, Bookish will host reading activities around books that feature gingerbread characters. Children will have a coloring activity to help the gingerbread people disguise themselves to escape being eaten! 

Bookish is committed to presenting high-quality work with an emphasis on diversity in voices.  Being small, they make a point of presenting books from smaller presses and independent publishers that may not be readily available from other venues. 

Baldridge and Sherrill hope their endeavor will transition from temporary to permanent and they have many ideas for engagement activities for older children as well as college and high school students and adults. They are hoping to provide summer literary camps focusing on books, comic books, writing and illustration.   

The entrepreneurs see their bookstore as familiar yet with an appeal that is just a bit different than other stores. They will be offering a number of items from local artists on consignment so busy commuters can get off their train just steps away from the shop. 

Contact Bookish at 773-570-0795 or www.thisisvaria.com. Hours: M-S 10 to 6, Sun 12-6.