Latest news from Evanston: Your Monday daily digest

Five young Girl Scouts (and one little brother) celebrate with ice cream after cleaning up the Main-Dempster Mile. (Photo by Evan Girard)

Good Monday morning, Evanston.

Evanston residents saluted the Earth by picking up trash around the city this weekend.

This year’s official Earth Day, April 22, was marked by a tumultuous rainstorm, so the radiant sun and clear skies that greeted the following day, April 23, made the neighborhood cleanups even more festive.

A variety of city organizations sponsored cleanups, including Downtown Evanston, the Kiwanis Club, the Main-Dempster Mile and the Evanston Ecology Center, which provided free trash bags and gloves to residents wishing to organize their own cleanup. 

Evanston Fire Department Division Chief Kimberly Kull and several colleagues from inside and outside city government presented information at an April 21 session to help residents prepare for seasonal weather hazards and combat the effects of climate change.

Kull assured the group that Evanston has a 24-hour presence of police and fire emergency medical technicians available to respond quickly if a disaster occurs. But regular folks going about their business who suddenly find themselves in an emergency are the community’s first line of defense, she said.

”And that’s really why we’re here … to be able to make sure that the first responders, the real first responders in the community, can respond to protect themselves,” Kull said. ”To protect their families, and by extension their community.”

At This Time: Sunday at 1:02 p.m. These are “human books” – people with unique experience who volunteered to talk about life and discrimination one-on-one for 30 minutes at the Evanston Public Library. Taking part in the Human Library are (from left) Avery Kalyn, who is gender fluid; Ebony Ambrose, whose son was killed in gun violence; Cookie Schwartz, gay and elderly; Ted Gram-Boarini, born with cerebral palsy; Ayse Bilgic, a Muslim woman born in Turkey; Tori Foreman, who is biracial; and Black activist Bennett Johnson. The event, held for the first time since the pandemic, is aimed at undoing prejudice through personal connection. (Photo by Richard Cahan)

Week in Photos: Take any good Spring photos? Send those, or any other recent photos to news@evanstonroundtable.com, and we’ll share then in our weekly photo roundup Tuesday.

Elsewhere on the RoundTable website

Theater review: ‘Bengal Tiger’ features powerful performances, painful history. Hamid Dehghani directs the intense, thought-provoking anti-war drama, “Bengal Tiger at the Baghdad Zoo,” written by Rajiv Joseph. The play is brought to life by an excellent cast of seven Northwestern undergraduates at the Wirtz Center.

The Miller Family: From Generation to Generation. The 10th episode from Season 1 of the Evanston Rules podcast features the Miller family: Teel, Willie and Alyson. Learn about how two prominent Evanston families, the Millers and the Spencers, merged to bring humanity and humility to the place we call home. 

Is it OK to let my kids quit? Dear Gabby, I am a single mom, and I was raised in a family that had a strict policy about not quitting things. This meant that if you took a serving of mashed potatoes, you finished it. If you joined a team or took piano lessons, you kept at it until Kingdom come. Now that I have kids who are joining teams and taking piano lessons, I am torn about what to do when their interest inevitably flags.

Picturing Evanston. It’s spring and love is in the air, but this couple adores each other year round on the exterior of Evanston’s Post Office at Davis Street and Oak Avenue. The bas relief by Works Progress Administration sculptor Armin Scheler is called The Answer. (Photo by Joerg Metzner)

ETHS boys track: Ellis anchors Kits to epic come-from-behind relay win. Vorn Ellis made up a 40-meter deficit in the final race of the night, the 1600-meter relay, and chased down a first-place finish while clinching a second-place team finish for Evanston’s track team.

ETHS girls track: Hurdler Artley joins list of relay options for Kit girls. Junior Abrielle Artley ran the leadoff leg on the 1600 relay and helped the Wildkits score an easy victory while breaking 4 minutes (at 3:59.40) for the first time this spring.

Take a Stand Against Racism with the YWCA. Stand Against Racism takes place annually in April and is a signature campaign of YWCA USA to raise awareness about the negative impact of institutional and structural racism in our communities and to build community among those who work for racial justice.

Downtown Evanston Farmers’ Market returns May 7. The Downtown Evanston Farmers’ Market will kick off its 47th season on Saturday, May 7. The market, which was named “Best Farmers Market – Suburbs” by Better Chicago, will be open Saturdays from 7:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. through Nov. 5.

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Around the web

‘Generations of Environmental Justice’ provides all-night climate education and builds community. Northwestern students and Evanston residents filed into Alice Millar Chapel on Friday evening for an all-night Earth Day event filled with speakers, workshops and live music.

Evanston sees string of catalytic converter thefts. Sixteen catalytic converters have been stolen from Evanston vehicles since March, according to police reports. Evanston Police Department Sgt. Chelsea Brown said catalytic converter thieves tend to work in groups and have been armed in the past.

Coast Guard suspends search for kite surfer in Lake Michigan near Evanston. The U.S. Coast Guard suspended the search Sunday afternoon for a kite surfer who had gone missing after last being seen on the lake Saturday evening. There had been no signs of distress and no correlating reports of missing persons.

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