Urban Farmers in Chicago

Using the context of an organic agriculture venture, Growing Home’s mission is to foster life- and job-skill training in a transitional employment program for previously incarcerated, homeless, and low-income Chicagoans.

Growing Home participants get real dirt-underneath-their-nails experiences at one of three farms—two on Chicago’s south side and one outside the city, in Marseilles, IL. The curriculum includes horticultural cultivation, harvesting, and processing, food and nutrition education, and life skills, including personal money management and practice interviewing. The Growing Home market stand at the Green City Market in Chicago gives participants the chance to learn marketing and retail sales skills.

Over 65% of the folks who go through Growing Home’s transitional job-readiness program—many of whom are recovering from addiction, suffering from mental illness, or have not held a steady job in years—find full-time work in the retail, landscaping, and food service industries or placement in further training or educational programs. “We’re dedicated to helping folks find their path,” says Orrin, “whether it leads them to an agricultural or horticultural job, or to go back to college, or into a different field entirely.”

Gloria, a Growing Home graduate who found the program after spending three years in a correctional facility for using and selling heroin and cocaine, says she now “loves seeing little sprouts push up through the ground.”

Another graduate named Margaret who also spent time in prison now says that becoming a farmer is her ultimate dream: “I love going out and working on the farm, being down on my knees crawling through the vegetables. Putting the seeds out, watching everything grow. I grow beautiful peppers, broccoli, strawberries, and tomatoes. Seeing how my little garden grows, I feel that I can grow the vegetables every year and have enough to feed the neighborhood, too. I see there is something I can do. That gives me confidence in myself.”