Bridging Cultures in the South Chicago Artists’ Garden
In 2003, the South Chicago Art Center lost their urban garden lot to development. That year, Angelic Organics Learning Center partnered with the Arts Center to develop a new and larger garden space on four city lots.
This community garden and educational space was also supported through a partnership with Heifer International, an organization that assists communities to produce healthy food for community development all over the world.
Over the past several seasons, adults and youth in South Chicago have received training from Learning Center staff and transformed vacant land once littered with broken glass and dominated by gang activity into a lush garden and a safe place for community gathering. In 2006 and 2007, the Artist's Garden in South Chicago received recognition awards from the Mayor's office. These achievements have made the Artists’ Garden a positive example for other communities, in Chicago and nationwide.
On June 19, 2007, a mild and sunny summer morning, the South Chicago Artists’ Garden hosted Heifer International project leaders from all over the world who were touring Chicago’s urban agriculture sites. The visitors spread out across the garden to see what was growing and learn about cultivating city soil. Angelic Organics Learning Center staff answered questions about the garden and growing systems, along with Art Center staff, and neighbors whose families cultivate plots in the garden. Most of these families speak primarily Spanish and don’t participate comfortably in English-language presentations, but they gradually formed clusters of conversation with the guests from Spain and Bolivia, and even the Portuguese speaker from Brazil, curious to know about the garden and its wider effects on the community around it.
After wandering the pathways and talking among the plants, the whole group gathered in the shade around the mosaic tiled boulders created by youth in the Art Center’s after school program. Staff from the Learning Center’s Urban Initiative in Chicago described our model for partnering with community groups, congregations, and schools – helping them to explore, plan, and implement their own projects and build healthy local food systems. Heifer International wants us to help them develop and apply this model in their urban agriculture projects throughout the US and beyond. Learning Center staff member James Howell described the gardening programs he leads in Rockford, Illinois, offering low-income youth in public housing and community centers positive ways to impact their neighborhood and family quality of life.
Pausing to answer questions, Learning Center staffer Rasha Abdulhadi noted the arrival of some elementary schoolers who are among her cadre of young gardeners from the Art Center. “What do you want to tell our guests about the garden?” she asked them. They looked dubious, and shy. What could these strange adults want to know about our garden? “They came from many different places to visit your garden in Chicago – do you want to hear where they’re from?” Sure, tell us, they nodded.
As we heard the country names roll forth from the assembled guests, our staff were as amazed as the kids: Israel, Nepal, Taiwan, Kenya, Ghana, Bolivia, Honduras, Spain, Netherlands, Brazil, Venezuela, Sri Lanka and many parts of the US, as well. All of us were there together to recognize the efforts and achievements of young people and adults, themselves from distinct backgrounds, trying to provide better lives for themselves and their neighbors. Many hands work that soil – and compost, and woodchips – under our feet, and are linked by their activity with others around the world in sustaining the fundamentals of food, land, and community. That larger movement was clear to all of us as we gazed around the circle of faces.
Someday, children from the impoverished and embattled neighborhood around the South Chicago Artists’ Garden may have the opportunity to travel the globe and gain perspective from other places and their people. Until then, partnership with the Learning Center offers rich cultural exchanges, chances for great learning, and a sense of that essential “big picture” close to home.