![Adding a tray of canned corn to the pile, junior Michael Collop assists in transporting donations for the Holiday Food Drive. The event, hosted schoolwide from Dec. 10-17, raised over 5,000 food items to deliver to the Parkway Food Pantry, helping several families in need. [The drive] is a great thing for us to do because you're giving to those who are less fortunate, and it helps provide for people who can't provide for themselves. [The] competition is always fun, too. It was fun to be in [social studies teacher Jess] Chazen’s class, because he always gets worked up over [the competition]. He made it exciting, and was always convincing us to turn in cans for the drive,” Collop said.](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/feature-photo-unsung-2.png)
![NEW CHALLENGE, NEW TEAM MEMBERS: Every season, VEX creates a new game that robotics team members are faced with and have to build a robot to compete in. This year’s game forces students to create a robot that is able to stack rings onto mobile goals in order to score points. The change in games each season is something that robotics teacher Audrea Moyers appreciates.
“One of the things that I like about VEX is that they have a new problem to solve every year,” she said. ¨Even though the equipment’s the same, they have to analyze the game, and they have to come up with solutions that are unique that year. They are using their knowledge from prior years, but they have to kind of redesign a problem.”
As returning teams were faced a new game, some new teams and members had to adapt to a uncommon playing field and game.
“Three of our four teams were competing for the first time this year, and they had very different experiences match to match, so I think they learned a lot,¨ she said. ¨It’s hard just watching a video online to know how it’s actually going to be in person, so they all learned a lot about what gameplay is like, how to work with an alliance partner [and] how to adapt during the day to changes.”](https://bestofsno.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/IMG_9283-1-1200x800.jpg)
As the days grow longer, the plots of soil in the once-empty lot in East Garfield Park will be prepared and planted. The rattling of the chain-link fence surrounding the lot will subside and be replaced with the voices and laughter of volunteers and regular farmers as the growing season begins.
Urban agriculture creates a cycle of sustainability, opportunity and education in neighborhoods without access to organic foods. Yet, for some, it is more than their occupation.
Malcolm Evans, director of farms at Urban Growers Collective, began farming at age 9 when he met the organization’s founder, Erika Allen. Urban Growers Collective is a nonprofit that addresses food inequality by growing organic food for food deserts: neighborhoods without access to convenient, affordable and healthy food.
“I grew up in Cabrini Green, and at that time they were just installing a garden in the neighborhood,” Mr. Evans said. “They did it on the old basketball court where I lived at that time and where me and my friends hang out, and we was just stumbling around the building and seeing that they was doing something over there that day and went over there to see what was going on.”
While in high school, Mr. Evans began the composting program at the now-closed Growing Power Chicago collecting compost from restaurants throughout the city after school and on weekends. In 2017, he became the Production Manager at UGC and later became director of farms.
“Folks in food desert neighborhoods who don’t have — or don’t have access to — healthy food and bringing healthy food and creating these nursery zones and these spots that folks can be vulnerable and like also know about food and have a space with folks that care about them,” he said.
Urban agriculture has been a passion for Mr. Evans and he has been able to pass that passion on to others in the community. One challenge for this has been willingness by those communities to embrace urban agriculture.
“When you start understanding food and get into food, this work really inspires you. It takes you to the next level,” he said. “But you gotta have patience and have passion for it. You can’t come into folks’ neighborhoods or come into people and try to teach them stuff that they’re not interested in. Folks gotta already understand it a little and just need a little bit more help.”
UGC allows one-time, drop-in volunteers for its South Chicago farm, where potential farmers can also sign up for a recurring volunteer shift.
Another aspect of UGC is its Fresh Moves Mobile Market, a bus converted into a mobile farmers market.
“I think my big highlight is always seeing these fields be loaded with delicious vegetables; also bringing back folks who’ve been doing it, folks who were in our youth club program, and also folks who volunteer to employ them,” Mr. Evans said.
Urban farming brings unique challenges, according to Steve Schultz, farm manager at another organization, Chicago FarmWorks.
“You’re dealing with pests and pathogens and diseases on the farm all the time,” Mr. Shultz said, “and every year it can be something new that you have to problem solve and push yourself through and find a solution to.”
Another difficulty for the farms has been food waste.
“It’s one of our concentrations of what we’re trying to reduce. As for food, anytime food breaks down in the roots, it creates methane, and a lot of the recent research shows it is one of the biggest impacts in climate change right now,” he said. “So us as a farm, it’s our, it’s our duty and our responsibility to try to figure out how we can reduce that.”
The goal of Chicago FarmWorks is not just to grow and distribute organic food to communities in need.
“We have a workforce development side to FarmWorks as well, which we are working with individuals that have barriers to employment. It could be previous incarceration, could be addiction, could be homelessness, could be many, many different things,” he said. “One of the reasons that the farm was created was to be a stepping stone for those individuals in the program.”
The workforce development program within Chicago Farmworks finds full-time, long-term employment for individuals on the farm to get reacquainted with the structure of holding a job.
“For a lot of those individuals as well, it’s kind of a gateway into the world of work again. As farming for the summer is very peaceful. It can be very healing depending on the trauma that those individuals had gone through up to that point,” Mr. Schultz said.
Mr. Schultz has been able to give back to the community while also building his passion for urban agriculture.
“It’s being amongst all that ecology and environment that makes me happy to go out there every day, even the days that are tough. So it’s no longer offices, it’s no longer computers and screens,” Mr. Shcultz said. “I’m just out there with the plants and being able to have this environmental impact with the work that I do, a social impact that I do, and I get to do it all outside. And for that I consider myself very, very lucky.”
This story was originally published on U-High Midway on March 3, 2023.