(Chicago) ... The end of a contest marks the beginning of new opportunities for three Chicago- and Milwaukee-based organizations: The Altgeld Sawyer Corner Farm, Metcalfe Park, and Demoiselle 2 Femme’s Climb, Jump, Leap and Imagine! Placemaking projects have taken top honors in the Metropolitan Planning Council’s (MPC) “Space in Between” contest, which wrapped up on Thursday, Nov. 1, with an awards ceremony in Chicago.
Each of the winners received a cash prize, a campaign to raise money through Groupon Grassroots, and the opportunity to tell their story to fellow neighborhood and community leaders at the awards ceremony. “Each of these projects has had such a positive effect on the neighborhoods,” says Marisa Novara, MPC Placemaking project manager. “We wanted to give them a chance to speak to other groups who have transformed their neighborhoods through Placemaking or who are looking to get started, to demonstrate the power of small efforts to transform communities.”
While community gardens everywhere are to be lauded for the hard work that goes into them, the People’s Choice Award winner (and $1,500 recipient), Altgeld Sawyer Corner Farm, is far more than just a neighborhood garden. They not only grow food, they grow it specifically for use in the Christopher House food pantry. They also provide educational plots for the children at Christopher House and a neighborhood composting program, and raise plants specifically for papermaking and dyeing purposes. Their commitment has paid off: When the farm was recently vandalized, the whole community came together to help with the restoration process.
The Metcalfe Park Community Action Team of Milwaukee earned the juried Runner-up Award and $500. The group commandeered a vacant lot and adjacent boarded-up building in their neighborhood, which has the highest concentration of vacant properties in the city. To help stem the tide of crime associated with the lot, they organized a neighborhood peace rally, as well as a drive-in movie night on the property, using the adjacent building for an art installation by local artist Ben Janik. The vision board, where residents express their visions for the space, still stands as a testament to the power of community activism.
And finally, Demoiselle 2 Femme (French for “young ladies to women”) of Chicago took the Grand Prize and $1,500 back to their Roseland community, thanks to their engineering masterpiece. Working in a vacant lot under the Femme 2 STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math) program, Demoiselle 2 Femme's young participants and staff created Climb, Jump, Leap, and Imagine!, a playground area inspired by the neutral territory of the Swiss Alps. Their efforts not only transformed the vacant lot, but also spurred the young women's engagement in their community, as various neighborhood groups helped create the playground and clean up the surrounding areas.
Novara noted at the ceremony that the judges had a tough time deciding between the 40-plus projects submitted to the Space in Between contest by groups from Chicago, Milwaukee, Gary, and the surrounding areas. "However, these three projects truly demonstrated a clear ability to foster community in a previously vacant and ignored space, transforming it from an eyesore into a community asset," she said. "Congratulations to all participants, and especially the three winners!"
Metropolitan Planning Council thanks the Michaels Development Corporation and Groupon Grassroots for their generous sponsorship and support.
For more information about the contest and Placemaking, as well as contact information for the winners, please contact MPC Placemaking Project Manager Marisa Novara, at 312-863-6044, or mnovara@metroplanning.org; or MPC Communications Director Mandy Burrell Booth, at 312-863-6018, or mburrell@metroplanning.org.