Students help create new Trillium Park in Elgin
Editor's note: This story was updated to say the city of Elgin demolished two vacant homes on the property.
It used to be an unkempt area, overgrown with weeds, that served as a garbage dump for everything from sinks to TVs.
Now, it's a clean, open park with new plants and trails and even a butterfly garden — the effort behind it a collaboration among middle school students, nonprofit groups, city officials and local residents.
Trillium Park — named after a three-petaled flower native to Illinois — will be officially dedicated at noon on Saturday, June 6, at the park off Illinois Avenue just north of Villa Street.
The project started with the goal of giving Ellis Middle School students, particularly members of the school's Science Nerds environmental club, easier and safer access to nearby Willow Creek and turned into a park that the whole neighborhood can enjoy, Parks and Recreation Director Randy Reopelle said.
“This underscores something I've seen time and time again — and that is the difference that a park can have in a neighborhood in terms of connecting neighbors to get involved.”
Residents are indeed thrilled, said Paul Martin, who lives across the street. “Every time I come out I think, ‘That's a very excellent job, and it was a great thing to do,'” he said. “Right now, everybody is very, very happy. The property values had to go up.”
The project kicked off more than a year ago when the city of Elgin hired a contractor to demolish two vacant homes on the property, city officials said.
NHS of the Fox Valley Director Patricia Williams said former agency director Mary Lu Seidel spearheaded the cleanup initiative.
That was followed by the work of about 160 volunteers who hauled out trash, pulled out all invasive plans and trees, and finally created the park by installing wood chip trails. The city helped by providing materials and garbage containers, Reopelle said.
The project was a lot of work, Science Nerds member Alexandra Sampieri said. “I thought it was going to be nice and easy, but it turned out pretty hard with all that trash.”
Seventh-grader Yesenia Gonzalez said the effort gave her a better appreciation for open space. “I'm more into nature now,” she said.
Local residents got involved, too, including Gaby Gomez, a senior at Elgin High School who lives nearby. “A lot of people came out to do it, and now it's pretty cool how it turned out,” she said.
The Science Nerds will continue quarterly cleanups of the park and hope to also create an interpretive trail while continuing to develop the prairie plot and butterfly garden and removing invasive species such as the garlic mustard, club adviser and teacher Holly Yee said.
The final phase of the project would be to build a boardwalk connecting the edge of the park to the creek, a distance of about a quarter mile, she said. “We're hoping this will happen somehow,” she said.
Some of that in-between land is private property, but its owner might be willing to gift it to the city, Reopelle said.
If that happens, the city will look into grants — such as from the department of natural resources — to pay for the boardwalk, he said.
“It's not inexpensive,” he said. “It's not a flat area, there is a lot of topography. It's not going to be real easy, but that's not to say it can't be done.”