For over a decade, tucked behind a corner of Chicago’s Englewood neighborhood on 59th and Lowe, our 20,000 square foot warehouse of refrigerated produce has quietly stood alone. For a long time, we have been the only organic—let alone fresh produce—venture in the neighborhood.

Until now. In conjunction with a neighborhood development grant from the MacArthur Foundation, the New Communities Program (NCP) has formed Englewood’s Quality-of-Life Plan. Included in it are strategies for renovating empty spaces into gathering places like gardens, parks, and urban farms. Though plans are just getting under way, we already have a new organic produce neighbor on 58th and Wood. They’re called Growing Home.

New Kid on the Block
Growing Home is a nonprofit organic farm and job-training program that grew out of Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. The program kicked off in 2002 with a 10-acre farm in Marseilles, eighty miles west of Chicago and, later on, a garden at Su Casa Catholic Worker in Back of the Yards. But Growing Home has been in the process of developing a locally accessible urban farm since 1992, longer than we’ve been in Englewood, way before urban agriculture was considered rational. Little did we both know that a 2/3 acre lot would be the key to a symbiotic Englewood relationship. What a pleasant surprise.

Currently, one hoop house stands on the lot, carefully sheltering specialty lettuce greens. By next spring, a total of four hoop houses will stand on the land, aimed to extend seasonal, local food choices for Growing Home CSA members. 

Harry Rhodes, Executive Director of Growing Home, has been with the project since 2001. His excitement for the new site is focused on the new prospects it will bring: “It will expand job training opportunities and bring to the neighborhood locally grown produce.” Even surrounding residents are excited, expressing curiosity. “We’ve had people stop us and ask us what’s going on and when we’ll be open,” says Harry.

To date, seventy five people have come through Growing Home. This next year they plan on 25-30. Referred by transitional shelters and community organizations, trainees are often homeless, formerly incarcerated, or low-income individuals who express interest in the six month program.

Changing One Life at a Time
Parris Brewer is one of those trainees, now turned Growing Home employee. With the new Englewood site, he acts as an Urban Farm Assistant. Parris says this would not have been possible without the opportunity Growing Home provides: “Harry gave me the opportunity personally. We can get back into society if given the opportunity. Harry gave me that and I’m going to prove him right.”

When Parris first came to Growing Home this last April, he did not know anything about organics or farming. He says he arrived with, “Some alcohol problems, homeless problems, and I was on parole.” But all of that is changing. “[At Growing Home] I learn how to respect the land, nature, and organic vegetables and I find it wonderfully rewarding to nurture the plants and watch them grow—like having a child,” Parris tells me, “And then I get to watch people buy it and eat it and make them feel better without the pesticides.”

Parris himself is feeling better too, eating healthier and thinking healthier. “I think about why I should put something in my body that kills bugs,” he says, pausing before forthrightly adding, “I’m not trying to hurt myself today. I’m trying to help myself.” Now he’s sharing his new-found talents, with not just customers at the markets but also with family and friends, who are becoming increasingly open. “It’s like they say, when you know better, you do better,” Parris says.

It’s Not Just About Farming, but Working
The goals Parris has set include enhancing his skills in the field and continuing with Growing Home. But this is not necessarily the main objective of the program. It’s aimed at giving people job training that prepares them in general for the work force. Orrin Williams, Growing Home’s Employment Training Coordinator, has been helping trainees begin the employment process. He says, “We take people who have been marginalized and provide them opportunities to experience the work place, “ continuing, “This experience starts them down the path to full employment by establishing what for some is their first documented work experience.”

It is experience that is formidable and transformative. Orrin notes, “Just working in a process where you start seeds, nurture them to seedlings, transplant them, and nurture them through a season until they become food has had a profound impact on our trainees. They express to me great joy for the time in a rural setting that allows them to slow down, become contemplative, and breathe.”

Season of Giving
Now at the end of their growing season and just before their next round of recruitment in February, Growing Home is still at work, gathering funding for their new site. They need our help. One area of possibility is with their $10,000 Challenge Grant, a quarter of which has already been met; for every tax-deductible dollar donated, Circle of Service Foundation will award the same amount. Growing Home’s 2007 CSA is also open, offering a great holiday gift opportunity to a loved-one or a donation to a needy family in the area. Another opportunity is volunteering for specific tasks that can be found on their website: www.growinghomeinc.org.

Finally, our new neighbor is seeking another kind of gift: Faith. Growing Home is looking for business partners who would be open to honoring employee recommendations. Growing Home trainee graduates, based on initial background checks, are often deemed not qualified from the start. But like Parris, they are looking for the opportunity to shine, to prove the ones who believe in them—right. They want to share the sense of home they reached out to create, for themselves and for the society they thought they’d been cast from.

We welcome the new company. How about you?