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Adopted man does DNA test and finds biological mom in a very familiar place

They had interacted in the past and had no idea they were related.

via ABC 7/YouTube

Lenore LIndsey and Vamarr Hunter.

At the age of 35, Vamarr Hunter, now 50, learned that he was put up for adoption as a newborn. Two years ago, he saw a television show about genealogy and did a DNA test to try and find his biological family.

The genealogist quickly determined that Lenore Lindsey, 67, owner of “Give Me Some Sugah” Bakery in South Shore in Chicago, was Hunter’s mother, so she gave her Hunter’s number. Lindsey had given him up for adoption when she was 17 years old and she was hesitant about contacting him.

“I was on the phone talking to my friend when a call came through from the bakery. I was like, ‘Why is Give Me Some Sugah’ calling me?’” Hunter told the Washington Post about when he got the call from Lindsey in the spring of 2022.

The incredible thing was that Hunter lived near the bakery and visited it weekly. “We had an immediate connection. All the pieces had fallen into place,” Lindsey said.

- YouTubewww.youtube.com

The life-changing news came after a recent breast cancer surgery and Lindsey was preparing to undergo chemotherapy. Hunter immediately started calling her “mother” or “ma” and went with her to chemotherapy appointments. While Lindsey recovered, Hunter stepped in, managing the bakery. After Lindsey suffered a stroke, he quit his job to run it full-time.

After retiring from her career as an accountant in 2008, Lindsey opened “Give Me Some Sugah” to provide a positive place for people in the community to relax and enjoy sweet treats. “I just wanted to have a nice little neighborhood place where people didn’t have to be served through bulletproof glass, and they could be treated like people,” she told the Chicago Sun-Times.



By reconnecting with his mother, Hunter met a host of new relatives, and Lindsey became a grandmother to Hunter's 4 kids.

Lindsey has a daughter named Rachel, 40, who believes Hunter fits perfectly into the family. “He talks like he was raised in the house with us,” Lindsey said, according to the New York Post. “We’re both the same.”

The reconnection between mother and child must have brought a lot of closure to Lindsey, who never saw his face when he was born out of fear she’d become too attached. But her mother got a good look at him, saying that he was “beautiful.”

Hunter doesn’t have any regrets about how things went in the past. He’s just happy to be part of a family where he feels he belongs. “You can't make up for time and days gone by. What you can do is properly utilize the time that you have,” he said, according to People.

Having a new son has been an unexpected blessing in Lindsey’s golden years. “It's the most joyful story and time in my life," Lindsey said. “In my senior years, all of this has come together.”

Lindsey is proud of the man Hunter has become. “He really is such a good soul. He has just no animosity [about being given up for adoption]. I’m sure he’s adding years to my life because I just got this sense of peace. It’s like your life came full circle,” said Lindsey.

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Chicago libraries see 240% surge in returned books after eliminating late fees

Photo by Alfons Morales on Unsplash

Last month, the Chicago Public Library system became the largest in the country to eliminate late fees thanks to Mayor Lori E. Lightfoot.

While the move, which was implemented October 1, was intended to "remove unfair barriers to basic library access, especially for youth and low-income patrons," it had another positive outcome. Since the removal of overdue fees, along with the elimination of any outstanding charges on people's accounts, libraries across the city saw a surge in the return of overdue books over the last several weeks.

"The amount of books returned has increased by 240 percent…We're very, very happy to have that. … Those books have a value and cost money to buy. We want those assets back. We also want the patron to come back," Library Commissioner Andrea Telli said at a City Council budget hearing, the Chicago-Sun Times reports.

According to a press release from Lightfoot, late fees rarely have the impact they're intended to. "Research from other fine-free systems has indicated that fines do not increase return rates, and further that the cost of collecting and maintaining overdue fees often outweighs the revenue generated by them."

RELATED: A garbage man saved 25,000 books and turned them into a library. The pictures are amazing.

Library spokesman Patrick Molloy confirmed that data, telling the Chicago Tribune when the fines get too big, people simply choose to not return to the library, and the missing items are never returned, either.

"Fines truthfully haven't been a revenue stream and weren't designed to be a revenue stream. It was supposed to be an incentive to get the materials back, and the research shows that's just not the case."

Library patrons are of course still responsible for returning books when they're done with them, or they'll otherwise be required to replace or pay for the missing items. Materials checked out of the library will automatically be renewed up to fifteen times if there are no holds on them. However, if the item is still missing one week after the last due date, it will be marked as lost and the person's account will be charged. But if the book gets returned, the charge will be cleared.

"Like too many Chicagoans, I know what it is like to grow up in financially-challenging circumstances and understand what it is like to be just one bill or one mistake away from crushing debt," said Lightfoot. "The bold reforms we're taking to make the Chicago Public Library system fine-free and forgive City Sticker debt will end the regressive practices disproportionately impacting those who can least afford it, ensure every Chicagoan can utilize our city's services and resources, and eliminate the cycles of debt and generational poverty because of a few mistakes."

RELATED: This viral library isn't all it's cracked up to be. But it's still stunning and important.

A large amount of people most affected by the fees were children. According to library data, 20% of suspended library cards belong to children younger than 14, the Tribune reports.

Hopefully this new system will encourage people, especially youth and those from lower-income households, to start taking advantage of their local library again without the burden of fees that can't be paid.

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Urban Growers Collective converts Chicago city buses into mobile produce stands for city food deserts.

Urban Growers Collective

Everyone knows that fresh fruits and vegetables are an important part of a healthy lifestyle. But what do you do if produce isn't available in your neighborhood and you don't have the means to go somewhere else?

Food deserts are a problem in some urban areas. Imagine having a 7-11 as your only grocery store for miles, not having access to a car, and not having public transportation as a viable option. Lack of healthy food options can have long-term impacts on people's health, increasing chronic issues like diabetes and heart disease and leading to greater health disparities between socioeconomic groups.

In Chicago, neighborhoods that are predominantly black are particularly hard hit by food deserts. According to the Chicago Reporter, African Americans make up about a third of Chicago's population, but almost 80 percent of the population of "persistently low or volatile food access areas."

Even as Chicago has attempted to mitigate this issue by putting in more supermarkets, the neighborhoods with the most need are still not gaining adequate access to fresh foods. Most of the new supermarkets are being put into "food oases," where there are already options for buying healthy foods. So food deserts persist.

That's where Fresh Moves Mobile Market comes in. A project of the Urban Growers Collective, Fresh Moves refurbishes old city buses, converts them into mobile produce stands, and brings fresh fruits and vegetables to food desert neighborhoods. The Mayor's Office and the City of Chicago have partnered with the program, and with the support of Barilla US and Chicago Transit Authority (CTA), Fresh Moves served 10,000 Chicagoans more than 17,000 pounds of fresh produce in 2018.

The company behind the mobile market, Urban Growers Collective (UGC), is a non-profit organization that creates educational programs and partnerships to achieve its overarching mission to positively influence food-deprived neighborhoods in Chicago's South and West Side communities. Led by Co-founders Erika Allen and Laurell Sims, the goal is to make nutritional food more accessible and affordable, create economic opportunities, and break systemic patterns.

"Laurell and I work together to embed our passion for social justice and healing into all initiatives at UGC to positively influence the lives of Chicago's oppressed population," says Co-Founder Erika Allen. "We provide the tools needed for personal growth and to combat systemic injustices in food systems," adds Co-Founder Laurell Sims.

Malcolm Evans is the Urban Farms Production Manager for the Urban Growers Collective, and he helped with the re-launch of the Fresh Moves Mobile Market. "We base our locations off of communities that don't have grocery stores nearby and therefore have a shortage of healthy food options for their families in those areas," he told Upworthy. "We try go to community centers and neighborhoods where we can offer food to groups of people at a time. I grew up in these neighborhoods, so I'm very aware of the food access and living conditions and I know where healthy food options are needed."

Evans says that 70% of the produce delivered by Fresh Moves is grown by farms that Urban Growers Collective has throughout the city. In fact, he got his own start at a community garden where he met Erika Allen as a kid. "The community garden was a safe zone where I could hang out, help out on the farm and avoid violence," he says. "I was able to figure myself out more and realized that I wanted to pursue this as a career. I became the great farmer that I am today as a result of my childhood working with Erika."

UGC operates seven urban farms on 11-acres of land predominantly located on Chicago's South Side. Each farm utilizes organic growing methods, intensive growing practices that maximize space, and year-round production strategies. Staff on these farms integrate education, training, leadership development and food distribution, supporting the UGC mission to provide opportunities for people in underserved communities.

Three cheers for this women-led, grassroots initiative that is making a real difference in the lives of thousands.

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Surprising no one, music festivals are disproportionately dude-heavy again this year.

Every summer, Lollapalooza brings some of the biggest names in music to Chicago for four days of fun.

On March 21, the festival announced its 2018 lineup, highlighting acts like The Weeknd, Bruno Mars, Jack White, Arctic Monkeys, Travis Scott, and dozens of other bands. Almost immediately, people noticed a trend: The headliners were almost entirely made up of guys.

Just 13 of the 85 bands showcased on the festival's announcement tweet were fronted by women. The big name headliners are totally worth the price of admission and are worthy of that sort of top billing. It's just a little frustrating to see some of the country's largest music festivals (like Lollapalooza and Tennessee's Bonnaroo) skip out on booking women in prominent slots.

In recent years, people have become more vocal about underrepresentation at festivals. And yes, it matters.

According to Nielsen Music, 32 million people attended at least one music festival in 2014, with those numbers pretty evenly split between men and women. California's Coachella — which, to its credit, does include acts like Beyoncé, SZA, St. Vincent, HAIM, and Cardi B in prominent spots in the lineup — has struggled to shake its "Brochella" stereotype.

When the 2018 Bonnaroo lineup was released, writer Trish Bendix commented that it was "such a bummer to see so few women on the lineup," and she was right — less than one in five Bonnaroo artists included women. Tegan and Sara, who have performed at the festival in the past, replied, calling for "a movement within the fan world and the press" to challenge gendered imbalances.

Writing at Into, Bendix slammed the imbalance, saying that it contributes to a culture where a festival can become "a very unfriendly place for women and LGBTQs to be as participants or attendees."

Are music festivals "unfriendly places" for women and LGBTQ people? They certainly can be, and some are fighting to change it.

The issue isn't the performers or the bookers, but the crowds. In a May 2017 Los Angeles Times article, music promoter Sara St. Hilaire discussed the time she was harassed at Bonnaroo, saying that a man followed her through the crowd, groping her.

"One time a guy even lifted up my shirt in the crowd," she said. "There's a sense of community and 'we're all in this together' that gets misconstrued at festivals. I remember being younger and not understanding that kind of thing as sexual assault. Society raises everyone to think 'boys will be boys' and it gets excused."

The full Lollapalooza poster.

You may be wondering what this has to do with who gets booked — and that's totally understandable.

The answer lies in a festival culture that promotes a free-for-all with a dangerously loose interpretation of consent.

The Pitchfork Music Festival, also based in Chicago, listed a "zero-tolerance harassment policy" on its 2017 festival website: "The Festival believes everyone should feel safe during the event and works to ensure this. We will help maintain this by not tolerating harmful behaviors, which may include non-consensual touching or verbal harassment. If a participant chooses to break these policies they may be removed from the fest." Lollapalooza's website contains a "Safety" page with a copy of its own harassment policy.

While these are good, important steps towards improving festival culture, change can't truly happen until the most visible women there — the performers — are treated as more than a mere afterthought.

A photo from Lollapalooza 2006. Photo by Roger Kisby/Getty Images.

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