EPIC: Beginnings

EPIC was created in 1975 as a result of an initiative of the Organization of the North East (ONE).  An organizer from this organization worked with a few neighbors in the area to form the block club/neighborhood organization.  This initiative followed the successful initiative of the Edgewater Community Council (ECC) in assisting neighbors to form the Edgewater Glen Association (EGA). At the time ECC and ONE were rivals.

One of the persons recruited in the organizing effort was renter and mother of two young sons named Kathy Osterman.  She became EPIC’s first president.  She would go on to become president of the Edgewater Community Council, alderman of the 48th ward, and the head of the City’s Department of Special Events under Mayor Daley.

The name, Every Person Is Concerned, and the resulting acronym EPIC is unique among Edgewater community organizations in that it has no geographic element.  All the others incorporate some geographical element in their name, e.g. Lakewood Balmoral Residents Council, Edgewater Glen Association.

The person who suggested the name was Robert Solomon, Sr., who worked for an advertising agency, and according to his grandson, was the wordsmith of the family. The name of the ONE organizer has been lost to history.

–prepared by LeRoy Blommaert, October 2013, revised February 2020