2005 Year in Review

Organic Farming Offers a Fresh Start to the Homeless

An organic farm may seem like an unlikely place to give homeless people from Chicago a fresh start in society, but Growing Home Farm is much more than just a farm. It's part half-way house, part business, and part training center -- using agriculture as a way to get homeless people off of the street while giving them a work history, a new skill set, and a sense of purpose.

When asked about the program, executive director Harry Rhodes quoted Growing Home, Inc.'s founder Les Brown as saying, "Homeless people often are without roots. They're not tied down, not connected, not part of their family anymore. Our organic farming program is a way for them to connect with nature -- to plant and nurture roots over a period of time. When you get involved in taking responsibility for caring for something -- creating an environment that produces growth, then it helps you to build self-esteem and feel more connected."

Growing Home Farm in Marseilles is the location of the third of six sustainable agriculture tours this year sponsored by the Agroecology-Sustainable Agriculture Program at the University of Illinois. The tour will take place on Wednesday, July 13.

Visitors on the tour will see over 30 types of vegetables growing on a 10-acre certified organic farm, permaculture plantings, bees, vermiculture and free-range poultry. There will also be an emphasis on organic soil fertility methods including cover cropping, under sowing, rotation and succession planting, compost making and remineralization.

"The mission of Growing Home is to grow healthy produce, create living-wage jobs and to teach self-reliance," said Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant, a U of I research specialist who is coordinating the tours. "Growing Home Farm is sustaining our environment, as well as sustaining our society."

The tour will begin at 9:00 a.m. and end with lunch served at noon.

A fee of $15 will be charged per person and includes lunch. Registration at least one week in advance is required. Visit ASAP to register and for more details about this tour and the other scheduled tours or contact Deborah Cavanaugh-Grant at (217) 968-5512 or cvnghgrn@uiuc.edu. The remaining tour schedule is as follows:
-- Tuesday, July 19, "On-Farm Composting" at QW Farms in Edgewood.
-- Friday, August 12, "Freshwater Farm-Raised Prawns" at the Lyons Fisheries in Sandoval, Illinois.
-- Tuesday, September 13, "Marketing for Ag Entrepreneurs" in Arthur.

The tours are sponsored by the Agroecology/Sustainable Agriculture Program in the College of Agricultural, Consumer and Environmental Sciences at the University of Illinois, the North Central Region Sustainable Agriculture Research and Education (SARE) Professional Development Program and the Illinois Small Farm Task Force.

by  Editor, theCity1.com
June 6, 2005