Resident starts Chicago hunger project

A few months ago while walking around Chicago, Mitchell Granger was constantly running into homeless people on the sidewalks and streets of the city.

The Lake Forest resident and junior at the University of Illinois at Chicago decided he wanted to help them.

“I think people often talk about doing something to change people’s lives around them and then they don’t actually end up doing it,” Granger said. “Really, I saw a pretty easy opportunity to give back to the people around me.”

Granger, a member of the UIC men’s tennis team, started discussing the idea of helping to feed the homeless with his teammates in November. These conversations led to the idea of making a few sandwiches and delivering them to people around the city. Motivated by the positive response the group was getting from the people they were serving, Granger launched Students Performing Acts of Random Kindness or SPARK. To date, SPARK has fed more than 200 men and women in Chicago.

Though Granger remembers doing some charitable work through various school functions growing up in Grayslake, nothing came even close to the scale of what SPARK has become since its launch.

“I grew up in a nice suburban town. I had never really been exposed to homeless people,” Granger said.

According to the Chicago Coalition for the Homeless, a non-profit in Illinois dedicated to advocating for public policies that curb and can ultimately end homelessness, nearly 140,000 Chicagoans were homeless over the course of 2013-2014. This is 19.4 percent more than the 116,042 people who were homeless a year earlier.

Per that same study, it was estimated that people living in families totaled 70,028, or 50.5 percent of Chicago’s homeless population. There were 48,743 children (35 percent of the city’s total, estimated at 138,575) and 21,285 parents or grandparents (15 percent). Unaccompanied youth (ages 14 through 17) is estimated at 4,500 (3 percent). Single adults totaled 64,047 (46 percent). This adult total includes 7,686 unaccompanied youth between the ages 18 to 21.

“Everyone talks about changing the world and SPARK is proof that you can shatter that ever elusive barrier between talk and action,” Granger said. “The first step in making any kind of difference is realizing that any amount of help, as small as it may be, has far-reaching effects and can begin to change lives.”

Since SPARK’s inception, the program has grown to more than 50 volunteers and meets on a weekly basis. Last month, Granger started a funding page for SPARK on gofundme.com. A goal was set to raise $3,000, which was nearly met as of press time with $2,730 coming from 38 donators.

According to Granger, any and all donations will go to the fund that helps purchase materials needed in order to make food for the homeless. In addition to weekly missions, SPARK has created an “adopt a person” campaign in which the group specifically rescues one homeless person and provide them meals, shelter, and transportation.

Granger said he has received a lot of positive response from Lake Forest and other communities on the North Shore. The Lake Forest Club is donating some platform tennis courts to SPARK for a March 15 fundraiser that will feature some of the area’s top platform tennis players.

As the organization continues to solidify itself, Granger is expecting steady growth, and as a result, SPARK will be able to reach more and more people.

“They’re very normal people and they enjoy conversation. They don’t get it very often,” Granger said. “They don’t get a hot meal. They don’t get to sit down and eat at a restaurant. These are all things we take for granted.”

To learn more about SPARK and make a donation, visit www.gofundme.com/sparkuic. A SPARK website will also be launching momentarily and Granger can be reached through that at together@sparkchicago.org.