When James Beard Participants Got Dirty
Before Monday's glamour, a visit to Urban Growers Collective's Grant Park Farm
The Award for Outstanding Weeding Goes To…
The city of Chicago’s motto is the Latin phrase urbs in horto, or “city in a garden.” It is attributed to architect Daniel Burnham, whose famed city plan preserved in perpetuity a remarkable natural environment in the midst of this bustling metropolis.
And there is no place that brings meaning to “city in a garden” better than the farm in downtown’s Grant Park, one of eight maintained on Chicago’s South and West sides by the nonprofit Urban Growers Collective.
This beauty spot, framed by towering skyscrapers, grows vegetables and flowers that mainly go into the Collective’s Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) subscription boxes and to customers in the city’s culinary sector. The latter became front and center for two hours Monday as a group of restaurant and food industry folks, who were in town for that evening’s James Beard Foundation Awards ceremony, participated in a gathering at the Grant Park Farm.
The night was all about dressing up for the big event at the Lyric Opera House and the amazing tasting event featuring chefs from across the country that followed at Union Station (Local Food Forum will have photos and commentary on the after-party in tomorrow’s issue). But those who visited the Grant Park Farm — and others taking part in a simultaneous event at Urban Growers Collective’s flagship South Chicago Farm — took the opportunity to get their hands dirty.
The Grant Park location is also called Art on the Farm. Collective Co-Founder Erika Allen graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and her influence is seen in the geometric designs and artistic clusters in the tiny farm’s plantings. (Erika on Sunday received a James Beard Foundation Leadership Award for her work to promote urban agriculture and food access, equity and justice at Urban Growers Collective and Chicago Food Policy Action Council.)
Kale, cabbage and edible flowers were flourishing under the watchful eye of the statue of Abraham Lincoln (upper right).
The tour was led by Lauralyn Clawson (far right in the photo above), the Urban Growers Collective’s Director of Operations and Youth and Work Force Education Manager. The Collective’s Youth Corps provides summer jobs for young people from around the city working the organization’s farms, including this Grant Park location.
Then Lauralyn put the visitors to work, weeding, cleaning up the plots and putting starter plants into the ground.
Grant Park’s Art on the Farm is open to the public and is located on the west side of Columbus Drive, just north of East Ida B. Wells Drive (formerly Congress Parkway). You can go to be inspired by the Urban Growers Collective’s great work, or if you’re just touring around (the Art Institute of Chicago and Buckingham Fountain are among the nearby landmarks). Either way, it’s definitely worth your time.
Read More About Urban Growers Collective
Previous stories in Local Food Forum:
Urban Growers Collective’s Inclusive Innovation, July 8, 2021
This Farm is as Urban as It Gets, August 6, 2021
Celebrating Local Food Policy Success, August 31, 2021