On a warm Monday morning in July, eight Blackstone Bicycle Works (BBW) youth met their instructor Alex Lamers to learn about bicycles. This would be the first time youth were back in person at BBW since summer 2021.

Every Saturday during the growing season, the residents of Jackson Park Terrace (JPT) gather in their hoop house to harvest. In the hoop house, the 61st Street Farmers Market Manager and the Head Gardener plant, harvest, and provide the JPT residents with food education programming.

Link Up Illinois has continued to grow its corner store initiative since 2020, now including eight stores across Chicago’s South and West Sides and East St. Louis.

Besides supporting our dedicated farmers and local food producers during these challenging times, our 61st Street Farmers Market customers have supported one another.

While Market attendance overall declined at the height of the pandemic in 2020 and 2021, our vendors reported record sales. That we were cooking and eating more at home provides a partial explanation. Our October 2021 Market survey provides additional insight: more than 25% of 503 Market customers who responded to the survey stated that they shopped for people outside of their own household during the pandemic.

Thank you to all those who took good, neighborly care of one another, exemplifying the spirit of the Market!

Experimental Station has been working for the past 15 years to ensure that affordable, fresh food is available to those with limited access.

This Summer, Experimental Station stepped in when the Illinois Department of Human Services (IDHS) was having difficulty finding a distributor for their Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program checks. The Senior Farmers Market Nutrition Program provides $25 coupons to low-income seniors in Chicago that can be spent on fruits, vegetables, and other eligible foods at farmers markets, farm stands, and CSA programs.

Partnering with IDHS, Experimental Station filled the gap by coordinating and organizing farmers markets across Chicago to help accept applications and distribute the coupons to seniors. Experimental Station also provided an information hotline for seniors. Besides the benefit to seniors, local produce farmers appreciated the extra sales.

Our 61st Street Farmers Market is grateful to Carrie Strahan for generously volunteering her Saturdays in August and September to help us support seniors in our community.

Experimental Station once again partnered with the City of Chicago to provide Link/SNAP services at the City’s farmers markets. Since 2010, Experimental Station has hired seasonal staff to offer onsite Link services and to administer the program, enabling Link recipients to access the foods sold at the City’s markets. This year, our experienced staff served seven City markets including Daley Plaza, Division Street, Austin Town Hall, Bronzeville, Pullman, West Humboldt Park, and the Mercado De Colores market (new this year).

With the help of CTA and CBS-TV advertising, as of September, 2022 has seen significant increases in Link sales, as well as an 25% increase in Link Match redemptions over last year—despite serving fewer markets. With Link Match, customers purchasing foods with Link benefits receive double the value of their Link purchase to buy fresh produce. That translates into almost $40,000 worth of free locally grown carrots, spinach, potatoes, beets, collards, onions, peppers, tomatoes...

The Invisible Institute is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalism production company. They work to enhance the capacity of citizens to hold public institutions accountable. Among the tactics they employ are investigative reporting, multimedia storytelling, human rights documentation, the curation of public information, and the orchestration of difficult public conversations. The work coheres around a central principle: we as citizens have co-responsibility with the government for maintaining respect for human rights and, when abuses occur, for demanding redress. The Invisible Institute is a former program of Experimental Station.

The South Side Weekly is a nonprofit newsprint magazine dedicated to supporting cultural and civic engagement on the South Side, and to providing educational opportunities for developing journalists, writers, and artists. They publish in-depth coverage of the arts and issues of public interest alongside oral histories, poetry, fiction, interviews, and artwork from local photographers and illustrators. The paper is produced by an all-volunteer editorial staff and seeks contributions from across the city. In 2022, South Side Weekly merged with the Hyde Park Herald, who are now sharing our space.

Build Coffee is a coffee shop in the Experimental Station. Surrounded by community-driven nonprofits and civic journalism projects, Build is designed as a hub of great coffee and radical collaboration. Build acts as a small venue for performances, workshops, gallery shows, book groups, game nights, and more. They also sell used books, local small press publications, journals, comics, art books, and zines.

Civic Projects, a woman and minority-owned firm, is a hybrid architecture practice in Chicago. Their work includes architecture as well as community and strategic planning, grant writing, and small-scale revitalization. They see their work as serving communities by expanding the role of design and architecture collectively. Their process of engagement, which interweaves closely with the process of design, prioritizes the involvement of those who the project will serve.