■ Easley memorial to be installed in Austin Town Hall Park PAGE 5
FREE Vol. 39 No. 23
June 11, 2025 ■ Also serving Garfield Park ■ austinweeklynews.com
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TaskForce Prevention will lead 2025 Pride Parade as Out Front Leader
A first look at the Aspire Center The building opens June 19 and will house resources for workforce training, legal and financial services
West Side nonprofit gets prime position for the first time By HECTOR CERVANTES Contributing Reporter
visibly and physically change. We want the people to be a part of that,” said Darnell Shields, executive director of Austin Coming Together – which, with Westside Health Authority, helped develop the Aspire Center where both will now have their headquarters. Shields is
TaskForce Prevention and Community Services has been named the Out Front Leader of the 2025 Chicago Pride Parade, marking the first time a local community organization will lead Chicago’s Pride Parade on June 29. The West Side nonprofit is recognized as it celebrates 35 years of service to LGBTQ+ youth of color. Located in the Austin neighborhood, TaskForce Prevention and Community Services is committed to addressing the HIV/STI-related needs of adolescents and young adults living in systematically disenfranchised communities with limited resources, by providing HIV/STI prevention education, testing, treatment and care services.
See ASPIRE on page 8
See PRIDE PARADE on page 6
Aspire Center atrium TODD BANNOR
By JESSICA MORDACQ Staff Reporter
The Aspire Center for Workforce Innovation opens this month after two years of construction, and about a decade of imagining and planning. On a stretch of Madison Street that is seeing revitalization after decades
of systemic disinvestment, the Aspire Center offers free workforce training, plus financial, legal, family and emotional services. But the building, the former and long-empty Robert Emmet Elementary School, is more than a 78,000-square-foot, $47 million investment in Austin. “We don’t want our community to just
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Chicago Chi Wi Winds d women’s football has West Side roots, page 4
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