North Chicago Community Garden
-Upcoming Expansion!
Growing Healthy Veterans welcomes community members to join the North Chicago Community Garden, enhancing access to healthy food and cultivating connection with veterans.
Upcoming plans incorporate increasing interest and involvement of residents in the garden; offering community events, educational resources, handicap accessible beds, hoop houses and produce distribution. Fresh, nutritious food is distributed to community members, veterans and active-duty in Lake County. The garden will feature a beautiful shelter designed by a veteran gardener to honor Lukan’s memory, a large garden plot for all veterans, and a water system to ensure consistent access for irrigation. GHV is confident that North Chicago will become a flagship of food independence with support of advocates like Senator Adriane Johnson, community donations and grants from foundations. The GHV garden will exemplify successful transformation of a food desert, through support of local communities and partnership with military veterans.
-Cultivating the soil to heal the spirit.
At North Chicago Commons Community Garden, veterans and active-duty military families provide food for themselves and the community, while cultivating a sense of purpose and connection. Welcoming residents to garden alongside veterans nurtures fellowship as well as reintegration into society. Studies show that working with soil and growing living plants is extremely therapeutic for trauma. Providing camaraderie, understanding and space to heal helps prevent isolation, substance abuse and suicide. Multiple veterans shared that without the GHV program, they might not be with us today.
-Roots of North Chicago Community Garden
Mayor Rockingham & a unanimous City Council generously provided 14 acres of city-owned property for the North Chicago Community Garden in 2018. Phase one offered individual plots to veterans, active-duty military, and North Chicago residents, and the FHCC Therapy programs cultivated two larger parcels.
The opening of Growing Healthy Veterans North Chicago Community Garden on June 30th was attended by Mayor and Mrs. Rockingham, Aldermen, residents, community leaders and supporters from FHCC and Great Lakes Naval Station. During the next few months, 33 veterans participated, including veterans from 3 FHCC programs, 6 Lake County veterans and 9 residents of North Chicago. Many other volunteers, including children, also came to help. Over 1,000 pounds of produce were distributed to veterans, their families, residents, and food pantries.
At the North Chicago Commons Harvest Festival, Mayor Rockingham told a group of over fifty people that the Growing Healthy Veterans’ North Chicago Community Garden is “one of the best things that has happened in North Chicago in a long time.”