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Community Corner

Community Gardens Grow

Root Riot provides more than just green thumbs to the Oak Park community.

Editor's note: This week marks National Community Garden Awareness Week, so we're highlighting one of the local success stories.

When Seamus Ford and Amy Beltemacchi formed the Root Riot Urban Garden Network in March, they had a modest goal.

"We wanted to create a community garden," said Ford, a former Oak Park resident who lives on Chicago's West Side.

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Ford and Beltemacchi met at the Green Tuesdays in the Village lecture series, which covered a wide variety of issued on self-sufficiency.

"They organized in March and planted in May. They're harvesting right now," said K.C. Poulos, Oak Park's sustainability manager. "It was an amazing thing to watch."

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Root Riot describes itself as "an open organization dedicated to creating opportunities for people to learn and discover the joys of growing their own food."

The garden, located on a residential lot at 838 Madison Ave., has about 45 raised beds that the organization built with some help from the village's Public Works Department.

Residents rent the beds and grow a variety of produce.

But community gardening has led to other unexpected consequences, Ford said.

 "It's become more about the community than about the garden," said Ford, who added that the garden has become a place for friendship and camaraderie.

Root Riot, whose slogan is "plant seeds, make friends, change the world," has appealed to a diverse group of people from numerous ethnic backgrounds. The group includes students and retirees as well as the poor and the affluent, Ford said.

"There are people who aren't gardening who are participating as well," Ford said.

More than 120 people got involved during the group's inaugural year, and they're doing much more than planting seeds and harvesting.

Root Riot has sponsored classes on various aspects of gardening, including irrigation, fertilization and weed control. Its members have also taken field trips to other community gardens.

"There's no limit to what you can learn," said Ford. "It's a big deal. We've really committed to something. It's an amazing place."

Poulos is not surprised by the group's success.

The village recently formed an urban gardening commission after several residents expressed interest in community gardening and urban agriculture, Poulos said.

Nearly 50 percent of the village's residents live in multifamily dwellings and don't have access to their own gardens, she said.

The commission is a partnership between the village, members of the gardening community, the Park District of Oak Park,  the Oak Park Farmers' Market. the Oak Park Conservatory and Cheney Mansion. Members of the Garden Club of Oak Park and River Forest, the park district's Green Advisory Committee and Friends of the Oak Park Conservatory also are involved.

"We're lucky enough to have a master gardener as a committee member," Poulos said.

Community gardening is an essential component of the village's goal of becoming self sufficient.

"The majority of food in the Chicagoland area is shipped in," Poulos said. "How do we become more intelligent about our food system?"

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