Waukegan's Community Garden Growing Strong

Long before "green" became a buzz word for environmentalists, Waukegan was called “Green Town” by native son Ray Bradbury in his novel, Dandelion Wine. He adopted the name because of the wonderful system of ravines and natural parks that run through Waukegan.

Now, a group of dedicated gardeners has set about bringing another kind of greenery to this urban environment. They call themselves the Green Town Waukegan Project and they started four years ago with a community garden downtown. On four vacant lots next to an historic bank building on the city’s main street, Genesee, with a view of Lake Michigan to the east, they have created an oasis of flowers and vegetables.

Bright orange lilies, delicate daisies, blackeyed susans and native Illinois switch grass compete for attention as one enters the garden through an arbor. Beyond them raised beds of vegetables—lettuce of several kinds, carrots, tomatoes—provide a profusion of greenery and in other beds the more delicate herbs. Paths meander between the plots. In the middle is a gazebo and a labyrinth. A statue of Buddha bears the inscription: “If we could see the miracle of a single flower, clearly our whole life would change.”

There are benches here and there where passersby can sit awhile. And, project members do not mind if those same passersby help themselves to a vegetable or two. After all, it is a community garden, they will tell you.

Nada Finn, chairman, said the project is an outgrowth of TOWN (Taskforce on Waukegan Neighborhoods), a grassroots citizens organization, founded by her husband, attorney Newton Finn, and dedicated to stemming urban decay by forcing building owners to bring properties up to code. “I

was tired of code enforcement and wanted to do something different to bring up the image of Waukegan,” Nada Finn said.

She enlisted the aid of Cheryl Pytlarz, who was then with the University of Illinois Extension and is now self-employed as a contract specialist by schools and home school groups that want to teach agriculture. Pytlarz believes so strongly in the Green Town vision that she volunteers her time to the project and serves as vice president.

When the city gave permission to use the vacant property, Pytlarz’s initial thought was that it was too ambitious to try and do the whole half-acre at one time. Then appeared David Dallison, a freelance watercolor artist, and Larry Sell, a teacher, who had done missionary work with farmers in Honduras, to show her differently. They literally took spray guns and painted outlines for plots on the whole thing. Dallison said, “I moved here five years ago, and I think the town has great potential but it needed a kick start. What better than to have green in the middle of austere.”

The City of Waukegan also cooperated by providing water. Volunteers pitched in to compost, plant and mulch. The Waukegan Garden Club adopted a plot. Donors contributed the benches, a garden provides a place of relaxation, hosts concerts and is often the site for wedding pictures, especially for couples married in the nearby Lake County Courthouse. Song birds and butterflys also frequent the garden, Finn said.

It is all maintained by volunteers, some 20 regulars and another 20 or so off and on, Pytlarz said. One of the dedicated volunteers is Amy Strege, who serves as treasurer and legal counsel. Her specialty is environmental law and she uses her expertise to advise on plants and how they can be planted. For example, she said, there was once a dry cleaning establishment on that site so the vegetables had to be planted in raised beds. She works in the garden as well. “It’s a joyful thing to be here,” she said, “and see the lake and feel the breeze.”

In addition to this demonstration garden, Green Town has also planted a rain garden in front of TOWN headquarters across from the Waukegan Police Department. A rain garden, Pytlarz explained, is planted on a site where there is usually standing water after a storm, with the result that the water is absorbed. It boasts plants with such exotic names as joe pie weed and swamp milk weed, providing color and interest along a busy city street.

Green Town Waukegan Project is now branching out from its demonstration garden to bring the concept to other parts of the city and include children in the effort. Last spring, they provided materials and expertise to five Waukegan schools and the Boys and Girls Club of Lake County to establish gardens with participants are allowed to make decisions about the designs of the gardens and what will be grown.

In addition, elementary school students from the Academy of Our Lady and members of the Youth Conservation Corps, a program for at-risk youth who have dropped out of school, have been invited to work in the flagship garden.

“This is an outdoor classroom,” Finn said.

“Even a pre-school class from the Waukegan Public Library and their mothers visited recently,” Pytlarz said. “It’s touch, see and smell the different plants. The younger generation, because of the electronic age, do not get outside. They don’t know where their food comes from.”

The newest Green Town initiative is a cooperative venture with Most Blessed Trinity Parish at their outreach center, housed in the buildings of the closed St. Bartholomew Parish on Waukegan’s South Side. Next to the former church, they have mapped out 15 garden beds. One of the center’s summer programs offers free lunch and activities for children in that low-income neighborhood and on those days the children work in their gardens under Pytlarz’s supervision. “They love working in the gardens,” she said, “but they’re timid about trying the food. They’re not used to eating fresh food so it’s rewarding to see a kid taste a sugar snap pea for the first time.”

Some of the plots are planted and maintained by families in the neighborhood who signed up with the parish for the privilege. They harvest their own produce and take it home. Homeless veterans, who live in the former rectory, also help with the watering and maintenance. And, if the tomato crop is bountiful, it will be shared with the on-site soup kitchen, Pytlarz said.

There is no lack of new ideas and plans germinating. They would like to provide job training for unemployed or underemployed Waukeganites in the growing “green” industries. A network of gardens on vacant lots where lowincome seniors, many of whom live in apartments, could grow their own fresh produce is another on their wish list.

A long-term project of restoring the degraded Waukegan River system, which empties into Lake Michigan, is also possible long-term project of restoring the degraded Waukegan River system, which empties into Lake Michigan, is also possible.

Funding is a problem, Finn admitted. The first year they received a grant from the State of Illinois for $15,000 and have since applied for other grants. They are also working with the Waukegan Harbor Citizens Advisory Group, formed by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency to advise Nada Finn, 56, grew up in Waukegan, a firstgeneration American. She graduated from Barat College and worked at Abbott Laboratories for more than 20 years. She has two grown children. Most of her gardening before this was indoor plants, she said, because she suffers from multiple sclerosis. Now that she has a team of helpers, she is passionate about turning Waukegan into a true “green town,” with gardens from one end to the other. “People years ago knew things that have been lost,” she said. “It’s so nice to be here (in the garden). No one cares about your job or your car or who you are.

They care about the plants and Pytlarz grew up in southern California and turned a childhood love of backpacking into a career with a degree in agriculture from the University of California at Davis. She moved to Lake County with her husband 22 years ago and has two children: a son, 26 and a daughter, 18. She lives in Mettawa and works mainly with schools in the western part of Lake County but is devoted to the Green Town Project. “I see a great need for it here,” she said.

When Ray Bradbury learned of the Green Town Project he wrote: “How wonderful if the Green Town Project would breathe new life into the city I so Anne Raver, an award-winning journalist, whose work has appeared in the New York Times, has written about gardens for 30 years. She once wrote: “Gardens, scholars say, are the first signs of commitment to a community. When people plant corn they are saying, let’s stay here. And, by their connection to the land, they are connected to one another.”

Virginia Mullery is a freelance writer living in North Chicago, IL.