Today we’d like to introduce you to Jennifer Fukala.
Jennifer, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
Prior to my current role as the Executive Director of the Downtown Neighborhood Association of Elgin, I spent 17 years in the restaurant industry, 14 of that in operations management. I started as a server and bartender and worked my way up by taking advantage of on the job development opportunities. I might have continued on with this career indefinitely, but a life experience unexpectedly changed my trajectory.
Ten years ago, during the depths of the housing market crisis, I had an opportunity to purchase a house in Elgin where I had grown up and gone to school.
The experience of home ownership was deeply moving for me. As a single parent, there had been a time when I had not been certain this would be a possibility. The housing crisis had made home ownership affordable, but I also saw how it threatened my investment. Houses were foreclosing all around me, side effects like crime and horrible maintenance conditions were spreading in my neighborhood. Through talking about these concerns with a neighbor, I learned that grassroots neighborhood association existed and after some convincing, I got involved and later became neighborhood President.
Through grassroots efforts, working with neighbors, police department and city officials we had success getting the blight, crime and maintenance issues under control and through raising awareness of the positives of our neighborhood with community events and projects our neighborhood because a much more desirable place to live. Through this success, I started getting involved with other volunteer efforts in Elgin such as historic preservation and housing. I found that many of the skills that made me successful in my job managing a business helped me be successful as a leader in my community and that my success in leading volunteers in my community helped me be even more effective in my job.
Over time, more and more people and groups approached me with more and more opportunities to get involved in even bigger ways in the community, but I was still working a restaurant manager and knew I was maxed out on extra time. I was aware that the work I was doing in my community was much more fulfilling than what I was doing at my job at the time. I let a few close contacts know that I would be open to taking on community work full time if I had an opportunity to be paid and it was shortly after that I was approached about an open position as the Executive Director of the Downtown Neighborhood Associate of Elgin, a role that involves fighting for the success of our historic downtown right outside my neighborhood. It has been 1 year since I took the leap and left my career in restaurants and the work I am doing each day could not be more fulfilling.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
When I came to the DNA, the organization had acted without a director for over nine months so there was a lot of systems and processes that hadn’t been looked at in a while and needed to be explored and addressed. There was also a lot of outreach that needed to be down to the downtown stakeholders because the organization had been dormant for so long.
Downtown Neighborhood Association of Elgin – what should we know?
Our mission is to create a thriving downtown environment in Elgin and just about anything that can contribute to that is fair game. This gives me and my team a lot of opportunity for creativity and collaboration with other organizations and downtown stakeholders. Our motto is” we don’t need to own it we just need it to be successful.” We offer basic support to all who are looking to locate in the downtown area or are already here, from building owners to business owners to residents.
Services assistance navigating city services and permitting, organizing events and promotions with business participation opportunities, marketing support, and managing the downtownelgin.com website with resources for the business community, residents and visitors.
What moment in your career do you look back most fondly on?
When I was still doing work in the community as a volunteer, there was a house in my neighborhood that was built in 1846 and was owned by the founding family of the west side. It had been a blight on the neighborhood, boarded up for years and in jeopardy of being demolished. After years of trying to find a solution for this building, I was able to form a partnership with the Elgin Historical Society and the City of Elgin to restore the building a museum property. I later received a Mayors Award for Historic Preservation for my involvement in the project but my proudest moment came when I knew the building was going to be saved.
Contact Info:
- Address: 31 S Grove Ave, Suite 100
- Website: downtownelgin.com
- Phone: 847-488-1456
- Email: info@downtownelgin.com
- Instagram: instagram.com/downtownelgin
- Facebook: facebook.com/downtownelgin
- Twitter: twitter.com/downtownelgin
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