Yvonne Boose reports for WNIJ/Northern Public Radio in DeKalb, Illinois, where she focuses on how community members are responding to the coronavirus pandemic artistically, culturally and spiritually. Boose was already at the station, where she contributed to local reporting. For 14 years, Boose worked for Verizon as a workforce supervisor but she decided to return to journalism in 2019 by producing and contributing at WNIJ. (Yvonne interned for the Beacon-News in Aurora, Illinois, in 2009 and for the Elmhurst Cable Access Channel in Elmhurst, Illinois, in 2000. Both internships helped Yvonne realize that she needed to work as a reporter.) Joining Report for America lets her become a full-time reporter focusing on local news. Yvonne is a published poet and has a master’s degree in journalism from Roosevelt University and a bachelor’s in speech communications from Chicago State University. In December of 2019, she received a diploma in radio and television broadcast from the Illinois Media School.
Beat: Cultural and spiritual community response in a Covid era
This Reporter helps foster community engagement and understanding by covering artistic, cultural and spiritual expressions in the Covid-19 era. This could include how members of community cultural groups are finding creative and innovative ways to enrich their personal lives through these expressions individually and within the context of their larger communities.