Anissa learns about gardening in Washington Park
“It’s a place that you can actually come to and know that you’re safe and have people to talk to.”
–Washington Park Site Student Crew Leader
The Windy City Harvest Youth Farm is just one of the many programs at the Chicago Botanic Garden. Each year, high school students apply and interview for a crew member or crew leader position at one of the Youth Farm program’s 4 locations—North Lawndale, Lake County, Washington Park, and Urban Garden Lab in the Loop. This year there were a total of 25 students at the Washington Park site, the farm that I worked at; the coordinator, Lily Baker, who happens to be a University of Chicago alumna, manages the location. The program is meant to be a place where students can learn about gardening as well as develop professional and leadership skills through various workshops and weekly critical feedback. Farming season is split into an after school program during which students work two days a week and a summer program during which students work all day throughout the week.
Anissa Outside Windy City Harvest Youth Farm
In addition to learning the ins and outs of gardening, students attend field trips during the summertime, sell vegetables at a farm stand once a week, help put on skits for the WIC (Women, Infants, and Children) program, and learn to cook healthy meals. With respect to farming and gardening, students learn to harvest and plant a variety of fruits and vegetables such as watermelon, squash, onions, turnips, beets, tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, asparagus, and kale. They also learn to trellis tomatoes and cucumbers, work with the bees, prep and weed the beds, perform pest control, and maintain a neat and tidy space. This summer, the Washington Park location was featured in the Chicago Tribune, which gave some students the opportunity to share their experience at the farm.
My role was to help the students with the gardening tasks assigned to them and to keep an eye out for feedback worthy actions—positive and negative. Even though I was only there two days a week the students were always welcoming; they would ask me to help them with their resumes, show me letters they had received from the mayor, and share with me anything from their plans for the weekend to their ambitions for the future. Some of the students really impressed me with the way that they were able to lead their coworkers while others handled grave personal situations so well that the staff had no idea that anything was wrong. I greatly valued this time that I got to spend digging my hands in the dirt with the students. Overall it was a wonderful experience. I learned about bees and how to garden, and I met and got to spend time with some amazing people.