The Homestories Run Series
Read & Run Chicago and Out of Eden Walk-Chicago teamed up to bring the very first HomeStories Run series to the Chicago community! During these events, readers & runners ran a 5k, shared stories of home, and connected with others.
These special events were live, informal storytelling series featuring voices from our community.
About Out of Eden Walk-Chicago
Out of Eden Walk-Chicago (OOEW-C) is a grassroots program that encourages residents to learn more about their own and other neighborhoods through civic walks, digital forums and an interactive map of crowd-sourced HomeStories. Inspired by journalist Paul Salopek’s walk around the world and funded by the Robert R. McCormick Foundation, OOEW-C has brought people together on foot and online since July 2017.
What are HomeStories, and what’s a HomeStories Run?
OOEW-C launched its HomeStories project in 2019. This is a digital storytelling platform where anyone can post stories sharing where they feel most at home and answer the same questions Paul Salopek asks the people he meets on his global walk: Who are you, where are you from, and where are you going? The idea is to share a little about yourself with people you might otherwise not know in an effort to foster empowerment, empathy, and understanding.
In the spirit of the HomeStories project, OOEW-C and Read & Run Chicago invited the Chicago community to submit their answers to the question “Where do you feel most at home in Chicago?” After we received submissions, we crafted running routes that followed the places where our community felt most at home. As we ran, we periodically stopped at these places and participants had the opportunity to share their answer out loud and discuss with fellow runners.
Where we ran
Edgewater
On January 30, 2022, we ran a 5k route through Chicago’s far northside neighborhood, Edgewater and heard community member Kaylee’s stories of where she felt most at home in this neighborhood.
Little Village
On April 24, 2022, we ran a 5k through Little Village, a bustling neighborhood on Chicago’s Southwest Side and the hub of commercial life for many members of Chicago’s Mexican-American community. We answered Paul Salopek’s four questions and listened to a community member’s story on where she felt most at home in this neighborhood.