Volunteers plant project to help Waukegan grow
Sunflowers have stretched to 6 feet and a variety of herbs and other plants have been carefully cultivated as an antidote to urban blight in Waukegan.
It may not seem like much in the big picture. But the coalition of volunteers who made it happen think this community garden is the seed for an ambitious plan to green up a Rust Belt city.
"This is just a demonstration of what we hope to bring citywide," said Newton Finn, a community activist and leader of the Taskforce on Waukegan Neighborhoods, or TOWN.
Those modest roots, planted in a long-vacant lot next to 37 S. Genesee St. will be introduced at a sneak preview Friday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and 5 to 6:30 p.m.
At nearly half an acre, the lot transformation would have been daunting for a single person or two. Having 100 or more volunteers made it easier and more important, and gave organizers hope the word will spread.
"These sorts of things start out small, and they have to," said longtime resident Bob Sabonjian, who also represents the area on the Lake County Board.
"This thing did work. We had so many local people come and help."
Belying the modest beginning is an expansive and wide-ranging plan known as the Green Town Project.
Organizers recognize the once bustling port and industrial center has been in decline for decades. The loss of a blue collar job base led to "high levels of unemployment, fragile neighborhoods, abandoned buildings and slipping schools," according to the TOWN literature.
With the transformation of the Genesee Theatre, new restaurants, a master plan for the lakefront and other efforts, the city is trying to recapture a lost prosperity, according to the group. The green projects could be a glue to bind residents and create vitality, it adds.
Transforming vacant lots throughout the city into community gardens will be a backbone of the effort.
Future plans envision greenhouse farms, wind power projects, establishment of an urban farm, restoration of the Waukegan River ravine system and many other offshoots.
"All of this is contingent upon us raising considerable money," Finn acknowledged.
TOWN has enlisted the city and University of Illinois Extension as partners.
"A vision like this, the ownership has to be from community members," said Cheryl Pytlarz, local food ambassador for the Lake County extension office.
The partners are investigating various funding sources, with a target of $2.7 million over five years. If successful, a full-time agricultural expert would be assigned to the effort.
The name of the project comes from Waukegan native Ray Bradbury's 1957 novel, "Dandelion Wine" in which the city is referred to as Green Town.
"How wonderful if the Green Town Project would breathe new life into the city I so fondly remember," Bradbury said in a letter of support.
A green technology center named for the author is scheduled for 2011, the last year of the multilayered plan.