N. First Street Prosperity Garden Ready for Teen Caretakers

Raised beds of rich compost and soil line all sides of the red granite pathway on the once vacant city lot on N. First Street near downtown Champaign.  Orange and yellow marigolds decorate the newly forming garden’s perimeter and mulch is carefully laid around the flowers to keep weeds out and moisture in.

The 14 beds await the hands of teens from the JUMP program at the  Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club who, for the first time today, will make the short walk from the Club to what is now known as the N. First Street Prosperity Garden.

The teens are the keepers of the garden.  JUMP, which stands for Juvenile Upward Mobility Program, is a program of the Club that works with at-risk youth ages 13-18.   The teens will plant the garden, harvest the produce, learn how to cook it and sell some of it at the Farmer's Market on Historic N. First Street which begins its new season on Thursday.

HOBY teens at the N. First Street Prosperity Garden on Saturday.

To get the garden infrastructure in place, Land of Lincoln Legal Assistance Foundation, one of the project partners, solicited the help of 50 teens from HOBY, the Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership project, and organized a work party this past weekend.

“Every muscle in my body is aching today,” Valerie McWilliams told me in a follow-up email.  McWilliams is the managing attorney at Land of Lincoln.

Her sore muscles and the muscles of 70 or so volunteers this weekend were how the compost and soil got from huge piles in the city’s parking lot to the garden.  The HOBY teens, all sophomores from high schools throughout Illinois, were there before the rectangular wooden planks arrived that make up the beds.  There was plenty to do while they waited.

Some teens weeded the rain garden near Land of Lincoln. Others spread newspaper rolls on the grass alongside the path before the mulch was scattered. 

The project has been two years in the making. It was just last week, June 1, that Champaign City Council approved a license agreement between the city and the Don Moyer Boys and Girls Club for free use of the land.

TJ Blakeman, city planner in the advanced planning division of the city of Champaign, who was lifting dirt along with the rest this weekend, explained how the project came to be.

“It started with the Land of Lincoln and Valerie McWilliams and other businesses along N. First Street and we started having this conversation about putting a garden, a flower garden and vegetable garden on 1st Street to kind of tie-in with the farmer’s market but also just kind of beautify the street,” Blakeman said.  “So we worked on that for about a year.  Each organization that was pulled in – the Park District, the U of I Extension, the city, the N. First Street Business Association – none of us had the resources to really tackle the issue.  It kind of lagged for a little while but then the Boys and Girls Club stepped forward and Sonya Lynch (JUMP program coordinator) said that she could get a grant to get a coordinator to manage the garden which is exactly what we needed. “

On Saturday Lynch said that things were “fantastic” and moving right along. 

"I hope that some of the children will become interested in gardening and nutrition as well as their families," Lynch said. "Maybe they'll even grow food at home when they realize it's not too hard. They can even grow it in a pot."

Sonya Lynch (l) and HOBY volunteer at the N. First Street Prosperity Garden on Saturday, June 5, 2010.

To learn more about the evolution of this garden, please visit N. First Street Community Garden Aims to Feed Spirits, Minds and Bodies.

Kimberlie Kranich, author of this blog post, is director of community engagement at Illinois Public Media and may be reached at kranich@illinois or 217-244-5072.

Nature Playscapes: Magic Included at No Extra Cost

How did you like to play when you were a kid - did you climb, jump, dig holes, play hide-and-seek, dream of adventures, solve clues and puzzles, play make-believe, make a fort, tell stories, dam up water, dig in sand, jump in leaves, create art, catch bugs? Was nature the setting for any of these activities? Chances are it was!

If I asked you right now, many of you could give a detailed description of the magical moments you had as a child creating your own world in a special spot in your backyard, or playing with friends to build and defend a fort. The memories of those times often bring back the innate excitement of childhood.

Today, children have fewer opportunities than we may have had to experience play of this sort. The Champaign County Forest Preserve recognizes this and is eager to develop a Nature Playscape. Still in the planning stage, this project will provide a unique place where children can experience the wonder of nature play.

What is a Nature Playscape?
In a word, it is a landscape designed for play. Nature Playscapes use natural materials like sand, water, plants, boulders, earth mounds and more to create a dynamic, interactive play experience. They might avoid plastics, metals, concrete and other artificial materials.

Nature Playscapes are a cutting edge concept in the spirit of Leave No Child Inside initiatives and the book “Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv. They are play places that provide kids, families and adults the opportunity to reconnect with the natural world.

Some examples of nature playscapes include the Fontelle Nature Association in Nebraska and the Jester Park Natural Playscape in Iowa.

What are the Benefits of Playing Out in Nature?
The benefits of nature play are many and varied, building healthy individuals in mind, body and spirit. These benefits have been demonstrated through research:

· A foundation for environmental stewardship
· More creative play
· Improved motor coordination
· Enhanced emotional coping and reduced stress
· Increased concentration and impulse control
· Reduced symptoms of ADD and ADHD

For more details about these benefits, along with the research cited, please see research here.

Perhaps the most significant outcome is stewardship. As Ken Finch, President of Green Hearts Institute for Nature in Childhood says, “Among conservationists, the experience of childhood nature play is nearly ubiquitous.” Research has shown that “… participation with “wild” nature before age 11 is a particularly potent pathway toward shaping both environmental attitudes and behaviors in adulthood . . . the experience is likely to stay with them in a powerful way—shaping their subsequent environmental path.”*

What Will Homer Lake's Nature Playscape Look Like?

The Nature Playscape, to be sited at Homer Lake Forest Preserve, will provide a safe place for children of all ages and abilities to experience nature play.  Children will also encounter the flora and fauna that are representative of the Grand Prairie region in a learning atmosphere that engages the whole person.

Public input has been sought on this project, and response has been very enthusiastic. On March 30, 15 people met at Homer Lake to tour potential sites and to brainstorm ideas for the playscape. We are also planning to solicit input from children and from local experts and advocates of those with disabilities to make the playscape as accessible as possible. Input from these various groups will inform the development of a conceptual plan, slated for this summer.

 The Champaign County Forest Preserve District values natural experiences for children and the lifelong benefits those confer.  The Nature Playscape will be an important avenue to facilitate those experiences.

Pam Leiter, Coordinator of Environmental Education and Interpretation at the Champaign County Forest Preserve, is the author of this post and may be reached at  pleiter@ccfpd.org or (217) 896-2455.



*Source: Nature and the Life Course: Pathways from Childhood Nature Experiences, Nancy M. Wells and Kristi S. Lekies, Cornell University, in Children, Youth and Environments, 2006