Dr Kweli Kwaza

In 2013 The Talented 10th Mentoring Program held a community panel discussion to try to find the fastest and most effective methods for improving our communities in Chicago.  After subsequent meetings, we decided that it is the block clubs that would be the most impactful methods for curing the ills of our communities in Chicago. Every block has at least one person whom all the other neighbors respect and these are the people we should support so that they can lead their blocks to a better community. We decided that the most important principles we should encourage are Love your Neighbor and Unity in the Community.  Unlike other communities, we decided to show our strength in numbers not as a threat, but more as a benefit to our elected officials and our faith-based leaders.  It is important that we don’t see our elected officials as our enemies, rather we should see them as tools to accomplish our community goals.  We vowed to support our elected officials if they support us. Club 21 has now grown to over 300 Block Clubs.  Our goal for 2024 is to grow to 400 Block Clubs by the end of the year.  We are also looking forward to creating our first youth program directory that will be geared toward assisting families with youth services. We are fighting for employment opportunities for residents of all of Chicagoans. 

We are encouraging residents to support our faith-based organizations this year and we will continue working with the Chicago Police Department to help our communities to become safer. We feel that it is important to support small local businesses by making an effort to do business with them.  Sometimes this might mean going out of our way to support local businesses.  It certainly means that we market those businesses by word of mouth and other means that we may have access to i.e. social media. We believe that it is impossible to thrive in a capitalistic system without capital. Club 21 has sponsored the Property after Death seminars with the Recorder of Deeds office to help residents save their homes.

We are looking forward to bringing in more assistance for our seniors who own homes to avoid the stresses of fraud and we hope to find assistance for seniors with home improvements. 

Club 21 started the block cleaning program with our youth.  However, we will assist our seniors with snow removal. In June 2017, we hosted a luncheon with Mayor Rahm Emanuel and are currently working with the Mayor’s office to respond to our request.  We changed our name from the 21st Ward Block Club Network to the 21st Century Block Club Network (Club 21)  because of the many requests to build similar organizations in other areas of the Chicagoland community and other cities.  We believe that through hard work, perseverance, intelligence, once, and God we can create and maintain safe, beautiful, and prosperous communities within the City of Chicago and beyond.  Please, join us in our efforts!