Merchant Park Community Garden

Where is Merchant Park Community Garden?

We’re building a community garden in the Irving Park neighborhood of Chicago. Our “park” is located in the empty land behind the alleys for Milwaukee, Addison, and Keeler, as seen in these pictures:

Who’s behind this project?

Many people in the neighborhood have been talking about doing something better with this empty land – here are some pictures of a few of us and reasons we support the garden project: (or click here to load a slideshow of these photos from our flickr photostream)

What have we done so far?

The project began with a great idea and flyers distributed through the neighborhood. Many neighbors came to the first meeting to see how we’d get started and ask questions – Alderman Reboyras was at the meeting and has been supporting our project since then.

We’ve met at least once a month since that first meeting to share information, make plans, and decide what steps we need to take next. In the groups on this website, we’ve kept track of more specific projects.We’ve applied for several grants and recieved our first donation from All Saints Antiochan Orthodox church, which has also hosted our meetings.

At a city-wide training for community gardens, we learned about a source for free recycled lumber, which we were able to work together to bring back to start our garden:

How can you help?

	We launched our kickstarter fundraising campaign and we need everyone’s help to spread the news about our project: http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/mpcg/merchant-park-community-garden
	If you want to keep in the loop about this project you can sign up for website updates to find out when our next meeting is scheduled or hear about other big news.
	You can also sign up for a website login to start work in a group or just share more information. Here’s an overview of more web options: http://www.merchantparkcommunitygarden.org/members/emily/activity/248/
	Want a garden plot for yourself and/or your family? Our application form is online here (please read the rules carefully first): http://www.merchantparkcommunitygarden.org/about/application/You can also view and download a printable copy of the application here: Merchant Park Community Garden Application