Remarkable Woman: Lisa Nigro - chicagotribune.com:
Nigro eventually opens Inspiration Cafe on Wilson Avenue in 1991. Motivated by Atlanta's Cafe 458, Inspiration serves the homeless in a restaurant setting.
Twenty-plus years later, the nonprofit has two cafes, a training center plus a network of resources dealing with the causes of homelessness and poverty. Along the way, Nigro has clocked 17 years in the health club industry, won awards for Inspiration Cafe (including the 2010 Presidential Citizens Medal) and raised twins (college students Emily and Nick) with her husband, Perry Nigro.
While the Chicagoan is still on the advisory board of and honorary chairwoman at Inspiration Corp. ("I love Inspiration with all my heart," says its founder), the focus of this 51-year old dynamo is on Transform U (transformutraining.org), a new
nonprofit geared to training people with cognitive
disabilities to be certified peer personal fitness trainers.
Q: How did Transform U come about?
A: I was working at the (health club) front desk, and a girl came in, Christine, who happens to have Down syndrome. She was wearing a triathlon shirt. I asked about the triathlon shirt. She was working with a fitness trainer at the gym and training for a triathlon, and I was thinking, "Why couldn't she be a personal trainer for someone like herself?" … She's an amazing young woman. She works at a theater. She's independent. And she said that being fit makes her feel like an independent lady. That's how Transform U came to be. I said to God — but you can say "universe," whatever you want to say — I said OK, "Here's the deal: Whatever door you open first, I'm walking through it." … It's been an amazing adventure.
Q: Why start something new when Inspiration Cafe's already up and running?
A: I'm highly curious. That is my gift and my downfall: curiosity. I have to figure out why things are the way they are. How come no one's tried to see if (some) people could become personal trainers? Or when you do community outreach in gyms, why isn't the whole community embraced? Why is it just people who pay?
Q: A favorite author or special book that touched your life?
A: "Man's Search for Meaning" (by) Viktor Frankl,
and Anne Lamott's "Traveling Mercies."
Q: What's your professional mantra?
A: Your past does not equal your future.
Q: What keeps you going?
A: I love my life; it's like a beautiful struggle because I'm doing it to enhance people's lives, to lift them up, and in doing so I'm doing the same for myself.
I believe strongly that's how the cafes became successful. Besides my intense curiosity, the skills my parents have given me are very much people skills.
Studied social work, after laboring in the field for several years, she becomes a Chicago cop but leaves police work and starts pulling a food-filled red wagon through Uptown to feed the homeless.
Nigro eventually opens Inspiration Cafe on Wilson Avenue in 1991. Motivated by Atlanta's Cafe 458, Inspiration serves the homeless in a restaurant setting.
Twenty-plus years later, the nonprofit has two cafes, a training center plus a network of resources dealing with the causes of homelessness and poverty. Along the way, Nigro has clocked 17 years in the health club industry, won awards for Inspiration Cafe (including the 2010 Presidential Citizens Medal) and raised twins (college students Emily and Nick) with her husband, Perry Nigro.
While the Chicagoan is still on the advisory board of and honorary chairwoman at Inspiration Corp. ("I love Inspiration with all my heart," says its founder), the focus of this 51-year old dynamo is on Transform U (transformutraining.org), a new
nonprofit geared to training people with cognitive
disabilities to be certified peer personal fitness trainers.
Q: How did Transform U come about?
A: I was working at the (health club) front desk, and a girl came in, Christine, who happens to have Down syndrome. She was wearing a triathlon shirt. I asked about the triathlon shirt. She was working with a fitness trainer at the gym and training for a triathlon, and I was thinking, "Why couldn't she be a personal trainer for someone like herself?" … She's an amazing young woman. She works at a theater. She's independent. And she said that being fit makes her feel like an independent lady. That's how Transform U came to be. I said to God — but you can say "universe," whatever you want to say — I said OK, "Here's the deal: Whatever door you open first, I'm walking through it." … It's been an amazing adventure.
Q: Why start something new when Inspiration Cafe's already up and running?
A: I'm highly curious. That is my gift and my downfall: curiosity. I have to figure out why things are the way they are. How come no one's tried to see if (some) people could become personal trainers? Or when you do community outreach in gyms, why isn't the whole community embraced? Why is it just people who pay?
Q: A favorite author or special book that touched your life?
A: "Man's Search for Meaning" (by) Viktor Frankl,
and Anne Lamott's "Traveling Mercies."
Q: What's your professional mantra?
A: Your past does not equal your future.
Q: What keeps you going?
A: I love my life; it's like a beautiful struggle because I'm doing it to enhance people's lives, to lift them up, and in doing so I'm doing the same for myself.
I believe strongly that's how the cafes became successful. Besides my intense curiosity, the skills my parents have given me are very much people skills.
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