GROWING SOLUTIONS FARM

​

Growing Solutions Farm is a 1.2-acre produce farm located in the Illinois Medical District -- just steps away from Stroger Hospital, Rush Medical Center and the Jesse Brown VA Hospital -- where Chicago public high school transition students (16-22 years old) with autism and related challenges gain vocational skills as they work at the farm.

 

Students learn how to harvest food and develop skills in food safety and sanitation, build raised beds, prepare soil, tend compost piles and harvest and prepare food for sale at our farm stands while practicing important transferrable job skills like following directions, communicating effectively with co-workers and supervisors, and managing and completing tasks.

 

During the school year, about 50 West Side students work at the farm. During the summer, the farm hosts 20-25 students in the One Summer Chicago jobs program. These students work at the farm and get paid by the City of Chicago.

Produce grown at the farm is sold at weekly on-site farm and community stands and to restaurants and wholesalers. The farm also offers an eight-box CSA subscription. Proceeds from these sales directly support our vocational programming at the farm.

 

Approximately ninety percent of students who participate in activities at the farm are from low-income families at or below the federal poverty level and experience food insecurity. Every week during the growing season, these students take home a bag of fresh, nutritious produce from the farm. Growing Solutions Farm also donates 20 percent of its harvest each week to Grace Seeds Ministry, which distributes it to food pantries on the West Side of Chicago.