[Education] Status of Community Gardens in the Parks

Thu Apr 30 17:25:02 CDT 2020

Hello all,

You know well that the Park District has closed the parks, shuttered all
the field houses, cancelled all activities in the parks, but did you know
this includes over 82 community gardens growing fruits, vegetables in the
parks?  The Park District has grouped these gardens as park district
programs and shut out gardeners from growing food at a time when grocery
stores are empty of fresh spring greens; there are no garden markets,
mental health is as important as physical health and the worst frustration
is that those very gardeners are not part of the solution.  NeighborSpace
Gardens and suburban cook county gardens are open.  It can and is being
dandone successfully and with vigilance for wearing masks, gloves,
hand-washing, cleaning tools, social distancing and scheduling to
accomplish that.  Please consider a zoom meting to discuss this ASAP, read
the attached letter as a sample to work with, and let me know what you
think. The letter is also copied at the end of the email.

Without going into the many reasons this is an unfortunate and just wrong
designation, I want to ask CCGA to draft a letter on behalf of all the
community gardens in the parks and send it to the appropriate people at the
park district, list in hand.  Earlier today I sent an email to the 82
gardens in the parks to join our letter.  Many of those gardens are run on
the kind of volunteer basis that email seldom gets read or answered. We can
step in; these community gardens are CCGA gardens too.

I've also spoke with May Toy who sent a letter to the Park District that
went unheeded, and I have it on good authority that the letter was put
aside--I've asked May to allow us to take her letter as our own with needed
changes to the wording and go from there.  Her letter is attached.  It says
just about everything we would want to say.  If you have something to add
please respond.

The Park District hold on community gardens in the parks expires tomorrow,
but no one expects to see gardens up and running, but it's likely the Park
District will extend the order without asking for any input from gardeners;
without allowing gardeners to propose a solution. Please let's get together
on this.

Regards,
Lorraine

Mr. Mike Kelly, Superintendent & CEO - Chicago Park District
Mr. Pat Levar, Chief Operating Officer - Chicago Park District
Mr. Alonzo Williams, Chief Programs Officer - Chicago Park DIstrict
Board of Commissioners, - Chicago Park District

I hope this email finds you safe and well in these unprecedented times.

I'm writing about the Community Gardens.  Recently the decision was made by
the Park District to close the community gardens.  The reason given was
that park district consider community gardens a program and all programs
have been cancelled due to COVID-19.  Community gardeners have been told
that they can't work in gardens even though the gardens themselves are not
closed..

I'm writing to ask that the Park District reconsider the closure of
community gardens to the gardeners. Community gardens don't really fit into
a program category like sports or afterschool programs where there is close
interaction among participants.  Community gardens don't really fit into a
traditional program box/concept.   For the most part, edible community
gardens are worked by individual household units and unlike sport programs
there is no real interaction between gardeners except maybe to exchange
greetings if they happen to be at the garden together just as if they ran
into each other on the street.   .

I also volunteer with the Chicago Community Gardener Association ( CCGA)
Resources committee and we provide materials ( seeds, vegetables starts )
to many community gardens all over the city but primarily to communities in
need.  They have been hard hit by the COVID-19 shut down and many of the
gardeners who we have distributed vegetable seeds to have express to me
their concern and need to be able to grow food again.

*ESSENTIAL FOR FOOD*
Growing food is essential and the Park District should open up community
gardens again with additional rules for physical/social distancing, IL
rules for wearing masks, gloves, etc..  A simple schedule signup can easily
be setup to ensure that people are not working the plots in close
proximity.   Food is essential and  many community gardeners have expressed
to me across the city that they have been laid off especially those in
the West and South sides that I work with thru CCGA, some of whom garden in
parks.

Most gardeners rarely see another gardener when they are working or
watering their plots.  I know that when I was in the gardens at Skinner
Park, I rarely saw another community gardener unless it was a group
volunteer work day.  And we cancelled all of our group work days early on.

*MENTAL HEALTH*
Many community gardeners are also seniors and growing food and flowers is
good for mental health especially in these times where seniors are most at
risk of social isolation.  Yesterday, I saw children walking in Skinner
Park delight in seeing the tulips that we planted last Fall.

*MAINTAINING COMMUNITY PARK GARDENS IS ALSO MAINTAINING COMMUNITY MENTAL
HEALTH *
Park gardens need to be maintain.  The Park District is still paying
landscape companies to maintain Grant Park and the lakefront.  99% of the
flower gardens in neighborhood parks have been nurtured and maintained by
community gardeners and supported by donations.  These gardens if not
maintained will become overgrown and extremely hard to get back to good
condition, destroying years of hard work by volunteers.  Most ornamental
gardens are maintained by a few hard working volunteers in each park who
can act responsibly.  For example, the Skinner Park Advisory Council and
other PACs and garden groups cancelled open group volunteer days even
before the Governor's mandate.  Many of our core volunteers have asked how
they can individually help in the gardens while adhering to COVID-19
restrictions.  They want to help and I think it helps with their mental
health to do something productive that also helps the community long term.
They would NOT be interacting with other people outside of their
households.

The flowers gardens that are maintained responsibly does not only help the
gardener but also help the community's overall mental health in seeing
beauty and something just growing & living in these times of great stress.
The ornamental gardens in neighborhood parks are not closed to the general
public and many neighborhood residents walk in them to get exercise but
they still need to be maintained although with different rules for how
community gardeners can work.  .

I can write many more pages on why the Park District should open up the
community gardens but I'll end here by strongly advising that the Park
District should work with community gardeners to create rules that will
allow them to return to grow food and work in the gardens and help with the
community's mental health.   The City of Chicago have not shut down
community gardens as non-essential because food is essential as is mental
health.

Thank you for taking the time to read this and please let me know if I can
help in any way.

Yours Truly,

May

May Toy
President
Skinner Park Advisory Council
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