Audacity - Save the Date - Nov. 8, 2023
Sunshine Enterprises’s marquee annual event, Audacity, will once again convene friends, supporters, partners, business and civic leaders around the common mission of empowering rising entrepreneurs in Chicago's under resourced neighborhoods to grow their businesses and impact their communities. Audacity began six years ago to gather people together around the efforts to support and grow minority entrepreneurship on Chicago’s south and west sides. Knowing that the reality of boosting small business activity in those areas takes collaboration and a common goal is one of the main reasons Audacity came to be. The audience has, and continues to be, a combination of Sunshine alumni, staff, program partners, donors, and volunteers. All of these groups are in some way speaking into the small business community in their respective neighborhoods to see them revitalized, safer, and desirable for people to want to live and do business in.
Trenton Blythe, Sunshine Enterprises’s Managing Director of Development and Communications, explains how this annual event got it name, “The name ‘Audacity’ came from the fact that it is a bit audacious to think that these historically disinvested communities of Chicago can actually achieve a level of economic vitality that sustains them and allows for thriving. Therefore, the ‘Audacity’ of this goal to empower rising entrepreneurs to build their businesses and impact their communities is at the core of both the event and of Sunshine. For me, audacity means that in the face of what many call insurmountable odds success is achieved. Having audacity means that one doesn’t really care what the obstacles appear to be because they know that what they are attempting to accomplish is worthy and right.”
Exciting changes in this year’s Audacity event:
While still seeking to shine a light on the minority entrepreneurs on the west and south sides, Audacity is seeking to change things up a bit in this 6th edition. Instead of being over the lunch hour on a weekday downtown the event will now take place in the evening in a larger venue on the west side. This allows for the event to highlight nearly three times as many Sunshine entrepreneurs through a real-time pop-up market. Guests will essentially be immersed in Sunshine alumni showcasing their businesses and wares. This is the best way to get to know Sunshine’s entrepreneurs, hear their stories, and see their impact. Overall, the event will have a more social light-hearted vibe that hopefully invites people to stay, connect, and shop with our entrepreneurs.
CBA Alumni
This year, guests will be immersed in a real time pop-up market where they can shop at, and enjoy food from, a variety of active Sunshine alumni businesses.
Audacity has purposeful goals:
“First and foremost, we hope that people walk away seeing just how legitimate and committed Sunshine entrepreneurs are to their businesses,” says Trenton Blythe. “All our alumni believe deeply in their business and the impact it can have on their neighborhood and families. Secondly, our goal is that guests don’t just come to meet our alumni but actually do buy goods or services for their own use or to give as gifts. The event will be just on the front edge of the holiday season, so we hope that people come with gift ideas for their friends and loved ones. Ultimately, I hope people walk away with a clear next step in how they can immediately invest in Sunshine, our entrepreneurs, and therefore black and brown small businesses across the city of Chicago.”
For anyone planning to join us at Audacity please bring a friend, a colleague, a family member that you think has, or should, have an interest in what Sunshine is doing.
One of the most desired things we have as a staff right now is to not have Sunshine, and our alumni, be the best kept secret of Chicago.
We need more and more people to learn about Sunshine and spread it to those that need to know what we are doing to breathe life into communities of Chicago that have strived for it for so long.
