Prosperity Garden

The second outreach weekend in Champaign was kicked off to a great start Saturday morning with a new group of students from both FAA and HDR classes working hard in the Prosperity Gardens on North First Street. Students began their morning by winterizing the vegetable garden, clearing the corn field, and trimming back the rain garden on the north side of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance building. Maintaining the growth of the rain garden keeps the plants healthy and adds to the aesthetics of the neighborhood. Before breaking for lunch, students got a head start on various tasks to prepare for the North First Street Halloween Extravaganza event for neighborhood children on Monday afternoon.

During the lunchtime cookout, everyone had an opportunity interact and get to know one another over some great barbeque and sports time in the park. The best part was that community members and neighborhood kids came out to join us in playing games and they referred to the college students as “the cool big kids.” It was great to see as many smiles on the students’ faces as there were on the kids’!

After lunch, our team continued preparing for the Extravaganza and started decorating the site by turning the scarecrows into mummies and carving pumpkins to set out. When we finished up turning the garden into a scary graveyard, we set out to help another team rake leaves at the home of an elderly couple who have made a great contribution in the community. Thanks to our team’s extra effort, everyone’s yard was finished as scheduled. AR.I and all of our community partners made this a great outreach weekend and a huge success!!!

Urban Agriculture in North Champaign

Students weeding the corn field

Happily moving mulch

For the first time, Illinois Action Research brought students in FAA 291 to volunteer in our own backyard of Champaign. Twenty students worked in the Prosperity Gardens, located on North First Street, near downtown Champaign. On Friday and Saturday students weeded, mulched, regraded, and re-soiled planting beds in the gardens and the introductory corn field across the street. The vegetables grown in the garden are sold at the North First Street Farmers Market and those proceeds are invested into local food justice programing, such as agriculture and nutrition education programs with local youth.

Prepping a space for future composting

Prepping the vegetable beds for winter

On Saturday students also weeded the rain garden on the north side of the Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance building. The rain garden is a great environmentally conscientious method to control runoff and prevent flooding of storm water systems, while using plants to filter pollutants from the water as it enters the ground. After lunch students examined the Bone Yard redevelopment area to better understand the plan for connecting north and downtown Champaign to campus town. The successful weekend ended in the building of four scarecrows to be used to deter groundhogs and other animals from the vegetable and rain gardens. IAR hopes to continue working with Prosperity Gardens as we continue to engage in community projects in Central Illinois!

One of many garter snakes seen on Friday

The bull frog that lives in the rain garden