Our city is home to hundreds of community gardens, and the Chicago Community Gardeners Association has created a network of those gardeners that is truly gardener-designed and gardener-led, to ensure the sustainability and vibrancy of Chicago’s gardens for years to come. CCGA is composed of working groups that meet regularly to support community gardens as a vehicle for building sustainable communities and enriching the natural ecosystem in Chicago and beyond. We are committed to creating a space where each voice and perspective is appreciated and heard. We support and encourage the participation of every individual. While Chicago’s neighborhood gardens are our immediate focus, we have the potential to engage with other areas through our teams of Communication, Education, Resources & Distributions, and Advocacy & Outreach because many issues affect our larger shared environment.
CCGA helps to find solutions to common challenges such as leadership transitions, access to safe water and land, and community organizing as well as provide resources and a platform for gardeners to connect and share knowledge.
Highlights
- The current working groups of CCGA are Outreach & Advocacy, Resources & Distributions, Education, Communications, and Finance. The main goals of these working groups are to host the Annual Gardeners Conference, organize plant distributions, develop and maintain shared resources, coordinate volunteers in gardens, and facilitate communication and information among gardeners.
- The CCGA Resources & Distributions Team cultivates seedlings and oversees plant distributions throughout the year. It distributes plants to over 130 gardens, on average, including 2,000 spring annuals and 5,000 vegetable and flowers. Additionally, over 9,000 plants are distributed to an average of 75 gardens represented at each of the three summer perennial distributions. In the fall, 4,800 bulbs were distributed to 60 gardens.
- The CCGA Education Team works to develop educational events and plan workshops sponsored by or coordinated through CCGA. Members review proposals and recommend the slate of presentations for each year’s conference. Additionally, the education team develops standalone educational workshops throughout the year. Workshops have included culinary and medicinal herbs, beneficial insects, fermentation, and tool care.
- The CCGA Annual Gardeners Conference draws over 250 gardeners representing all areas of Chicago.
- The CCGA network of gardeners is growing, with over 1,800 active email subscribers and 2,800 social media followers, with more joining every day.
A History of Chicago Community Garden Organizing
- 1995: GreenNet forms as a professional network of non-profit organizations and public agencies committed to jointly improving the quality, amount, use, and distribution of green open space in Chicago.
- 2010: GreenNet members came together over two days at the 2010 Community Garden Sustainability Summit. Nearly 30 members of Chicago’s community garden sector examined their collective efforts, discovering a robust though disjointed sector needing better community organizing, communication, and resource sharing.
- 2012: Growing Forward brought a working group of garden leaders and community stakeholders together to map out the solutions to problems discussed at the Sustainability Summit. Their answer? Create a network that is truly gardener-designed and gardener-led to ensure the sustainability and vibrancy of Chicago gardens for years to come.
- 2013: Connecting Chicago Community Gardens (CCCG) holds its first meeting, drawing over 200 community gardeners. CCCG did not begin and end with the conference itself, but has lived on in working groups meeting regularly to coordinate garden tours, plan next year’s conference, and find solutions to common challenges such as leadership transitions, access to water and land, and community organizing. This website continues this community-built vision.
- 2014 to present: Chicago Community Gardeners Association (CCGA) becomes a self-sustaining entity…