This is the first article in an eight-part series running that will follow our Chicago urban farms through harvest. Go back to the series homepage. Go ahead to part two.
Spring Awakens
Early on a frosty April morning, Andy Novak – also known as Farmer Andy – arrived to work at around 8:30 am. While the rest of us were likely logging into a computer or arriving at the office, Farmer Andy unlocked the metal gate surrounding a 2-acre farm on Chicago’s west side. Given the time of year, most of the soil was still bare, but rows of spinach seedlings were just beginning to sprout, tiny bright green confetti against black soil. Farmer Andy walked to the repurposed shipping container that holds his farming tools and equipment, opened the heavy steel doors and pulled out what he’d need for the day. Shortly, a group of workers would arrive to help Famer Andy finish prepping the farm for the upcoming season.
The clouds were low and heavy, looking like they could snow at any minute. You might think it was an awful day to work outside, but Farmer Andy was upbeat, “I’m really looking forward to this year.”
Farmer Andy is a seasonal farmer at Chicago FarmWorks, a job training and food pantry farm in Chicago’s Garfield Park neighborhood on the City’s west side and a program of Heartland Alliance. Urban agriculture is blossoming across the city. The world’s largest rooftop greenhouse and the nation’s largest indoor organic vertical farm call Chicago home, and Chicago FarmWorks is the newest venture on the block. Chicago FarmWorks is unique in that it is embedded in one of the world’s leading anti-poverty organizations: Heartland Alliance. This urban farm lodged in a 127-year old nonprofit, reveals complex and surprising stories. In an eight-part series, told over the course of the growing season, we’ll give you a window into the inner workings of the farm, and its impact on people across Chicago.
“Chicago FarmWorks will produce over ten thousand pounds of vegetables that will be distributed throughout the community to people in need.”
What is Chicago FarmWorks?
On that particular morning, it did snow. But as the weather warms, seeds germinate, and the season’s early harvests come, Chicago FarmWorks will produce over ten thousand pounds of vegetables that will be distributed throughout the community to people in need. Meanwhile, the workers that join Farmer Andy on the farm – participants in FarmWorks’ transitional jobs program, all of whom face multiple barriers to employment – will find good jobs. By the time the snow returns in fall, Farmer Andy, his coworkers at Chicago FarmWorks and others across Heartland Alliance and the Chicago community, will have produced 30,000 servings of vegetables and will have helped dozens find full-time, meaningful employment.
Simultaneously addressing hunger and unemployment has been the vision for FarmWorks from the beginning, according to Nancy Phillips, Heartland Alliance’s Director of Employment and Economic Advancement. Nancy oversees FarmWorks, along with many other programs at Heartland Alliance, and helped get the farm off the ground. In 2010, there were early discussions about starting a farm, and it was important to Nancy that it house a robust program that would benefit the community.
Urban Gardens Mean Access to Food
“Since food deserts and healthy food access were coming more into the forefront we jumped at the chance to grow this venture,” Nancy noted. Among the sources of inspiration was Heartland Alliance’s 2010 study by its Social IMPACT Research Center, Running on Empty: Nutritional Access for Children in Cook County, Illinois. The results were shocking: more than half the children in Cook County were food insecure, and one in six suffered from hunger. The study also noted that a lack of nutritious food was one of the most significant predictors of physical, cognitive, educational and social development in children. Heartland Alliance’s experience in creating successful employment programs could position it well to not only help people secure jobs, but also to address these problems through partnerships with food pantries, which are so important to food security.
“Simultaneously addressing hunger and unemployment has been the vision for FarmWorks from the beginning, according to Nancy Phillips, Heartland Alliance’s Director of Employment and Economic Advancement.”
Urban Gardens Mean Job Training
“We knew providing paid work experience and training are really effective for people getting back into the job market,” Nancy said, “especially when you train them for a specific career pathway. But, there aren’t a lot of jobs in urban agriculture, so it was important for us to connect the dots by developing relationships with food warehousing companies so our participants can move into good long-term jobs.”
“Heartland Alliance has a long history of highly successful and innovative workforce programs,” Nancy noted. “Last year, we connected 1,800 people to employment: veterans, refugees, people experiencing homelessness, opportunity youth and residents of public housing.”
Urban Gardens Fighting Poverty and its Effects
In partnership with the City of Chicago, Alderman Walter Burnett Jr., WRD Environmental, and Christy Webber Landscapes, Heartland Alliance broke ground on Chicago FarmWorks in the fall of 2012. It then proceeded to grow measurable impact.
Research shows that beyond fresh vegetables and jobs, urban farms have multi-layered effects on communities. They improve health literacy, vegetable consumption, economic savings, increased home values, and general well- being. Among the reasons is that urban agriculture tends to be community-based and collaborative.
FarmWorks demonstrates this. Talking with Nancy and Famer Andy, you get a sense of the dozens of partnerships that Heartland Alliance has forged with community groups, city government, other non-profits and neighbors. The work that Farmer Andy does on the west side is also inextricably connected to other programs at Heartland Alliance. For example, FarmWorks’ vegetables are distributed through a food pantry managed by Heartland Alliance’s health outreach component, which also offers advice on nutrition. Later in the summer, Andy will host groups from Heartland Alliance’s refugee programming and its summer youth employment programming.
“Research shows that beyond fresh vegetables and jobs, urban farms have multi-layered effects on communities.”
What’s Next?
This is the first article in an eight-part our series running that will follow our Chicago urban farms through harvest. We’ll share more about growing food in the city and explain how Heartland Alliance uses its small farm to end poverty.
It’s going to be a busy year, but Farmer Andy doesn’t seem to mind. “I love watching the whole thing from the start,” he said. It was still early morning but Andy’s workers were arriving, ready to go, despite the cold. The spinach seedlings, too, seemed ready for the season. “Everything’s getting going,” said Farmer Andy.
This is the first article in an eight-part series running that will follow our Chicago urban farms through harvest. Go back to the series homepage. Go ahead to part two.
Dave Snyder is a writer and gardener whose poems, essays and criticism have appeared in Best American Poetry, Gastronomica, Colorado Review, The Iowa Review and elsewhere. From 2012 – 2015, Dave worked for Heartland Alliance managing Chicago FarmWorks. This year, he returns to tell FarmWorks’ story.
