What might we build after the world ends? It’s a question I’ve asked myself amid narratives that we’re careening towards catastrophe. I’ve lived the entirety of my conscious life in a post-911 world with an ever-present sense of collective doom, and I’m not unique among my peers. Perhaps every generation believes the world is on the cusp of either death or rebirth, with its own iteration of war and disaster.

And yet, there is always a remnant of the world that keeps surviving, that must figure out how to eat, where people will lay their heads, how they will pass the time. Growing Home is the kind of organization that asks, in the face of fatalism, what would it look like to resist despair? Based out of Englewood, it’s rooted in a community that has already experienced great hardship, and now real people with real lives must decide how to move forward. Not to be lost to existentialism, Growing Home responds to chaos with solutions, spurred by hope. Reduced to its essence, it’s quite simple: they grow food and they teach people how to grow food.

Growing Home is a USDA-certified organic urban farm leveraged as a center for workforce development, where cohorts learn to work the farm, attend vocational development classes, and are paid for their time. The food is distributed back into the community of Englewood: a place where high-quality, organic produce can be hard to come by.

As an outsider to Chicago, it’s difficult to grasp the entirety of the stories and connotations that have shaped local understanding of the Englewood neighborhood. You are quickly warned that it’s considered to be one of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Chicago (despite some residents’ reports of media exaggeration). Driving across Englewood to find a salad twenty minutes down the freeway, I noticed the striking absence of trees. It reminded me of neighborhoods in my own city of Washington D.C., where a lack of shade indicates the city’s neglect, subjecting predominantly Black and Latinx communities to heightened heat and pollution. The divestment in Englewood is integral to its origin story—the neighborhood developed in the 1930’s as an overcrowded, redlined section of Chicago, designed to keep the city’s Black residents isolated.

Today, you notice the empty lots, many with concrete foundations serving as ghosts of properties past. Where buildings stand, many are vacant. There are neighborhood joints that seem popular, where people gather to socialize, but those locales seem largely ignored in the dominant narrative. What people will tell you, from my experience as a visitor, is that Englewood is seemingly forgotten by the city. Just shy of half the residents live below the poverty line, a figure 26% higher than the poverty rate of Chicago as a whole. It’s a known food desert, classified as such by the NIH and confirmed anecdotally by residents. The number and location of grocery stores, convenience stores, butchers, bakeries, and stores with SNAP acceptance is too low for healthy food—or much food in general—to be accessible. Whole Foods made headlines when it opened in 2016, and was then gone by 2022 with no replacement. Salt in the wound of a hungry neighborhood, the divestment continues. And the empty lots make it palpable.

“I think the older generation worked really hard—and I'm specifically talking about Black and brown communities—to purchase properties,” Vauna Hernandez explains. As a Chicago native and the executive director of Phoenix Recovery Support Services addressing housing and addiction recovery, she understands the landscape well. “And there's been so much disinvestment in communities over the years that the children—people my age—don't necessarily want to stay in those communities. So they end up either abandoning the homes or selling them, and they just sit.” For her, the history is deeply personal. She inherited a property from her grandparents, and recalls what it was like in childhood: “It was all middle class or blue collar families, and it was an incredible neighborhood. And now there's only my house and two other houses on the block that still have the original owners or families in them.”

Janelle St. John, Executive Director of Growing Home, agrees: “Many of the families here bought into the American dream.” People were sold the idea that despite the systemic divestment they were dealt, they could draw a new card for themselves through property ownership. “They tell you now, ‘If you want wealth, if you want economics then build homes.’ This is what they bought into. But your home has no value because you're on the south side. You're considered Englewood. And so they don't get to benefit from this idea they bought into 30, 40 years ago.”

The narrative told about Englewood is that it’s a place where bad things happen. Implicitly, that’s a story that incites blame. Growing Home, and the network of community workers with which it’s intertwined, believe a different story. Englewood is a place that’s been neglected by the external powers and promises on which it depended. Now, its residents are rebuilding from within. Or in the case of Growing Home specifically, they’re growing something altogether new.

The late Les Brown founded Growing Home in 2002, originally a project birthed out of his other nonprofit, Chicago Coalition for the Homeless. Les was compelled by the need in the city and felt not enough was being done to equip the unhoused with opportunities to overcome their situations. The photos from two decades ago show barren, concrete lots and a beaming staff, already hopeful for what could be built from the nothingness. “​​If he was alive today, I think that he would be in tears to see how much this has grown and how much we've thrived,” Zenobia Williams, Director of Employment Training, shares.

The analogy of it all is so rich it would border on cliché if it wasn’t sincere. 20-some years on, the nonprofit is quite literally growing a solution to some of the neighborhood’s most pressing problems. On the once barren cement lots upon which Growing Home now sits, the organization has brought in raised beds, dirt, seedlings, greenhouses, and a small building for processing the fruits of their labor. Growing Home’s approach to community development centers restorative relationships for those on the fringes, such as returning citizens or the unhoused, meaningful employment that is both lucrative and fulfilling to the individual, and of course, food.

Ezra Lee, Farm Program Manager, ensures the farm’s environmental sustainability practices without compromising a high volume of food production. The organic certification allows the farm’s produce to stand out, but it’s just one piece of the puzzle for Ezra. “It's been interesting to work on an urban project because a lot of what certification focuses on… is soil health and fertility and long-term return to the ecosystem. And the ecosystem is so different here. We're sort of just trying to build a little island of green.” Visually, ‘island of green’ seems accurate. The acres of neat rows of produce, the high-ceiling greenhouses deceptively living on raised beds, built upon what was previously concrete—all of it so vibrant, you have to take a second look to see the fierce intention against impossibility. For Ezra, the constructed nature is its strength, as “It allows us to think about producing a really high quantity of food in a built environment where we control the nutrient flow in a very different way than we would rurally.” And the effort has literally borne fruit: “I'm really proud about how much food we push out. It's been at 35,000 pounds every year for the past couple of years, and that's a really serious undertaking.”

As a technical expert, Ezra is tasked with the wellbeing of the farm. But he also gets to work the land alongside program participants and watch the seeds and dirt become something more transcendent. The most critical impact he observes is a lesson in time. “Typically they [program participants] are working with not very many margins for error in their life,” he explains. “There's a lot going on, a lot of circumstances, and it's hard to get these timings to line up perfectly. And so trying to use it sort of as a way to explain payoff… you don't get to see all of the payoff of a farm in three months. I don't get to see it even in three years,” he adds. “But trying to just experience a little bit of that growth, and [see] how at different scales of time things will feel differently,” that’s an experience he views as transformative.

“We plant seeds in the ground, not only to feed and nourish community, but we actually plant seeds inside of people as well.” LaQuandra Fair, Community Engagement Coordinator, explains. “And plants and people need the same things: sometimes weeds pop up, gotta pull those out of there. But you keep on going.” An alumni of the 2016 cohort and now a staff member, she’s experienced the program from both ends. And she understands that beyond produce, the impact on program participants is the heart of the organization.

The programmatic work involves a workforce development training, to which participants often apply after referrals from case managers at other organizations. The 12-week long cohorts consist of roughly 20 participants, all of whom are paid for their time. They spend their mornings working on the farm, learning what it looks like to seed, harvest, and sell produce. In the afternoons, they spend their time in the trailers on-site working through three different courses. The classes are designed to prepare them for job readiness, covering things like appropriate workplace behavior, a ServSafe certification, and other basic skills that impact hireability. This learning exists alongside a class called “Roots of Success,” translating the agricultural skills to life lessons, and “Transforming Impossible to Possible,” which digs into the personal barriers and fears impacting their ability to reach their goals.

The commitment to participants’ wellbeing is extensive. Zenobia explains, “We provide any kind of services they need.” They’ve connected unhoused participants with shelters or housing, and acquired furniture or eye glasses as needs have arisen.

Beyond the formality of programming, staff are committed to doing whatever it takes to see those within the fold to a place of self-sufficiency. I saw this firsthand when mid interview with Workforce Development Officer, Daniel Mackay, a former participant showed up en route to a job interview. Daniel greeted him, “Mr. Briggs! The champion!” As the two laughed and embraced, Daniel complimented Mr. Briggs’ suit, “Sir, I hear that there's going to be a company that will have the privilege of interviewing you today,” illustrating in real time his role in Mr. Briggs’ support system, something he calls a “winning circle.” Mr. Briggs laughed, “You know I’m gonna be my best.” And Daniel did know, because beyond the formal relationship the two maintained as part of the program, the men are now friends. Mr. Briggs visited Growing Home on his way to the interview because of the encouragement he was sure to receive, confident in the support of his community there.

“We give them the tools,” Zenobia elaborates. “We can’t change everybody's life, twelve weeks is not enough time. But it provides you with the tools necessary to tell you how to set goals, how to recognize what those barriers are, talk it out, try to help you get over those things and [take] some forward moving actions.” They believe in one another, champion one another, with a conviction that each belongs to the other. Each is his brother’s keeper, her sister’s keeper.

Lots of organizations wax poetic about being a family, oftentimes to the detriment of the workplace culture or staff. But for those connected to Growing Home, it seems to be the appropriate word. People depend on one another in a way that goes beyond the outlined delineations. It’s a relational approach that creates a meaningful sense of community. The impact of that connection defines the stories of current and former program participants.

“Once I got here, they made me feel important again,” Brandon reflects on his Growing Home journey, which began in February of this year. “If I fall, they're carrying me.” The greatest testament to the quality of the organization’s work is the alumni, many of whom are now thriving—like Brandon. When you meet Brandon, his joy is palpable. He approaches you, greets you with a wide smile, and immediately puts you at ease. Brandon was a returning citizen struggling to find employment when a case manager at a job placement organization referred him to the Growing Home program. It was pitched to him as a job: the opportunity to earn money without judgment of his previous experience with the law, and to develop new skills along the way. He applied that same evening, looking past some initial hesitancy around the idea of farmwork. He remembers his excitement over the novelty of the opportunity: “They pay you while helping you, so I was like ‘I gotta do this. This is God-sent.’”

Brandon had formerly worked in factories and intended to move up in the field. He speaks often of “working up the ladder,” full of energy and drive to succeed. But his experience with incarceration rattled that sense of self-assuredness. “When I got out of jail I was not motivated. I thought I was a failure.” He spent his time applying to positions on Indeed, but after each background check opportunities would vanish. He was fortunate to have a supportive mother to lean on, but eager to pave a path forward for himself.

In the six months since Brandon first heard of Growing Home, his transformation has been rapid. “They made me feel like family right away, and that's what gained my trust,” he recalls of his early days on the farm. “They had the door open, ‘Come in!’ You know what I mean? And it was the way they talked to me too. They talked to me sincerely, with honesty.” Brandon leaned into the immediate sense of trust he felt within the community and that anchored him through long days of challenging work on the farm. “I'm not a farmer, I'm not going to lie. I don't like farming,” he laughs. “But when I was doing it, I actually had fun and the people made it funner. We had great conversations while we're working, so it kind of made me want to work more.”

For Growing Home, a love of farming is not the goal. All participants learn about nutrition and are empowered to grow their own food, but staff understand that vocationally the majority of program alumni will end up elsewhere.

For Brandon, elsewhere isn’t too far—he’s now on staff at Growing Home.

“What I do is, I come in and brighten a person’s day,” he explains when asked about his role. It’s easy to believe when you’re standing in front of him, warmth exuding from his person. More specifically, his role involves working with program participants to find and apply to jobs. He’s passionate about resourcing participants with essential knowledge on how to fill out a job application and how to handle oneself in an interview. For the bulk of program participants, these skills are often inaccessible, gained only through the learned culture of a workplace. Brandon gets excited about bridging that gap. Still, he appreciates farming as the beginning of a vocational journey, as it played out in his own story and he now sees it playing out for others: “The farming is like training on where you're going to get,” Brandon explains. “That's why I like the farm and the work. [It’s] like a step stool. Like, ‘Hey, this is what you're going to be going through for the rest of your life. It's work.’ You have to work in order to move up. And I feel like farming is actually a great beginning stage, because it’s actually some of the hardest work. It's going to be harder than what they're going to do.”

For other program participants, the hard work of farming actually is the goal. For Denise Evans, a member of the Spring 2024 cohort, the appeal of Growing Home was that it perfectly aligned with her interests in agriculture and the culinary arts. “It's always been my dream to grow my own foods,” she remembers. “I wanted to help other people. I wanted to feed the communities who didn't have food.”

Growing up in Englewood and experiencing the food desert firsthand, Denise knows what it looks like to have healthy, organic produce withheld from your community. “I grew up around a lot of bad foods, a lot of junk foods, and that was the cheapest that my mother could get me,” she explains. “So when I grew up and realized that there was places like farms and Trader Joe's and Whole Foods who sell good food but are not in our community, it made me sad.” Her own imagination led her to a solution remarkably similar to that of Growing Home: “If I could start growing my own food and giving back in the community, then we can have a system of how to get healthier foods.”

For Denise, there’s a spiritual impact to the inaccessibility of food. She recounts the ways relatives have battled obesity and diabetes, trapped in diets lacking essential nutrition because of their neighborhood’s poverty and the city’s neglect. But beyond physical health, she senses a link between diet and depression, even diet and crime. “I do feel like processed and bad foods can make you [turn] to crime because you have all this negative energy inside you,” she asserts. Because of her time at Growing Home, Denise is optimistic she can chart a different course for her family. “So now that I am in farming, I could bring healthy food to my family and show them how to grow their own foods,” she shares with a palpable excitement.

In describing her experience at Growing Home, she shares, “Life is bright again.” Having struggled with a learning disability, the support provided by instructors has equipped her to enjoy learning in the classroom in a new and profound way. Coming out of the discouragement of unemployment, the support of staff and the community has been huge. “When you think that nobody cares about you, you're going to have somebody there.”

When she looks ahead to the future Denise sees a career in farming and a backyard garden in her family home. Like many of the participants and alumni I spoke with, Denise voiced dreams of moving elsewhere beyond Englewood. Even for people committed to the community, there are limited opportunities in the neighborhood. Denise hopes to travel, to work in a different city or even country. But once she’s earned some money and had some adventures of her own, she intends to bring those resources back home, further tending to the garden where she’s from.

Janelle St. John is realistic about the role of Growing Home. “I always like to say Growing Home is just an option. It is not a solution,” she says, distinguishing the organization she runs as one that offers services, not one that will solve the problem of Englewood’s food desert. “So I hesitate when people say, ‘All these empty lots, why don't they just grow food on it?’ Do we ask other communities to grow and forage for their own food? You don't. If people want organic produce picked from the ground, Growing Home is their option, but they also need access to grocery stores and places for meat and not just one grocery store every few miles,” she reasons.

Janelle recognizes that Growing Home is possible because it exists within a network of partner organizations doing essential work to care for the community, none of which could stand on its own. But Growing Home is at least a piece of the puzzle for how this specific neighborhood, and these specific neighbors, can create a different narrative for their community than the one they’ve been offered.

It’s lofty, often to the point of naivete, to believe that one organization can solve a problem in its entirety. What is more feasible, however, is leveraging immediate resources to care for the members of society slipping through the cracks. Growing Home is at its best when it embraces its small scale—a process of personal transformation as slow and painstaking as the immutable measure of time and tenderness necessary to nurture a tomato.

“It's something about putting your hands in that dirt and actually seeing something go from zero to a big, huge something that you can eat,” Zenobia explains. "[There’s] something healing in that… we’re growing people.”

In Englewood, Growing Home rejects the story that’s been told, the one where the world is ending, or has ended, and there’s nothing left to be done. Instead, Growing Home picks up a shovel and gets to work, hand-in-hand with their neighbor.