Volunteering at Chicago Lights

Last night was the big storm. When my boyfriend and I were leaving our apartment we found that our neighbor's tree was blocking our way out. Once we worked our way around it, I dropped him off to work and I headed to Chicago Lights (just down the street from his job!).

It was a pretty large branch!

Once at Chicago Lights, Hannah and I were put to work inside of the hoop house. We pulled out any left over lettuce roots/crowns in the beds to prep them for planting. We also weeded around the exterior. A team of teens from their summer program came in afterwards and flipped the soil.

Our buckets of pulled greens!

I found this guy while digging through dirt. He was ugggly.

Once we finished, we were asked to plant peppers! That was fun.

Unfinished bed of peppers!

Finished bed of peppers!

We got down and dirty really quick. But Superman can take on any job! A little while later another teen came in and watered the beds. While we were finishing up a man approached Hannah. He was a resident of the housing next to Chicago Lights and he was locked out since his wife went shopping. He asked Hannah if he could help her out in any way and she let him shovel some of the dirt onto the top of the beds. 

The reason I paid so much attention to this small interaction is because it was a personification of what exactly urban agriculture sites like Chicago Lights aim to do. They build relationships within local community. It's the let's-help-each-other-out mentality that I particularly like about urban agriculture sites. This man was so adamant in helping her even though she wasn't a staff member in anyway. It was his first time at Chicago Lights and he wanted to help out as much as he could. I found this interaction very meaningful.

Superman!

Probably should get my nails done?

After we finished with the hoop house, we were asked to rearrange some of the ables of the greenhouse so we could move the papaya trees around. Well, at least, I think they were papaya trees. After we finished moving the trees (which was really hard, by the way), we found these guys in bundles where the tree pots had once been. I wanted to scoop some up and take them home to my garden but I contained myself.

Worms we found underneath the papaya trees!

Papaya trees!

Closer to the end of our three hour shift, Hannah watched as one of the staff set up a moving sprinkler. Hannah discussed that this was something UFarmIIT should do and add to our farm. It would streamline watering duty which is often difficult when watering by oneself.

I loved running through sprinklers as a child!