Humanize the Earth!

Marshall Square Parkway Garden Club update

April 10, 2007 at 9:08 pm | In the Commons, Chicago, garden |

I was in last fall’s Chicago Conservation Corps leader class, and wow, does it ever seem like the winter’s been long, with respect to my project. Don’t get me wrong, I love winter. Anyway, just wanted to report a wonderful conversation with folks at my local corner store tonight.

I don’t speak much Spanish, and the owners don’t speak much English, but I go in there all the time and we pretend we’re communicating. We’ve talked in the past about them selling recycled paper products and also about the possibilities of me getting ahold of free plants to beautify the parkways in the neighborhood. We’ve talked about it a couple of times, but never (until tonight) with any actual communication taking place. :-)

So tonight I went into the store with a 4-pack of recycled toilet paper to show them, and ask them to stock. We we around and around in circles between me and the wife and the husband, without anyone really knowing what we were talking about. Eventually they called their daughter to come translate. She explained to her folks and thought that they’d be able to get recycled products from their regular supplier. We exchanged phone numbers and some more chit chat, and then …

her mom talked about the free plants I’d talked about before. So I explained a bit about C3 and the East Village parkways and how we could do that in our neighborhood as well. Turns out she’s on the board of the Little Village Development Council, or something like that, and can see big visions of doing the whole street. I’m all for that, and also am realistic that sometimes small projects go smoother than big ones, so I talked about doing one parkway, and then another, and then another. She suggested the corner store as the first site! Awesome!

So now I need to get everything in gear for supplies we need and then pick a date for planting!