Located at 6402 S. Honore St., I Grow Chicago is a non-profit healing zone for youths to seniors, filled with accessible resources that build skills, foster connections and promote safe and thriving communities.
Created by business owner and certified yoga instructor, Robbin Carroll, I Grow Chicago is a personal story of ownership, respect, and value.
Co-Executive Director, Erin Vogel, tells their story:
What initially sparked the idea for the I Grow Chicago project?
The story is pretty fascinating actually. Our Founder and President, Robbin Carroll, had a lot of money in sales and would always hear about the violence in Southside Chicago and wondered how it could be so different from the Chicago she saw every day.
She attended a talk by Liberian peace activist, Leymah Gbowee, who wrotea book called Mighty Be Our Powers. As she was speaking about the Liberian war during this talk, a white man stood up with his checkbook in hand and said, “Tell me any amount of money you want and I will write a check for it.”
Robbin looked at her husband and said, “Okay, I guess I need to go pick a corner.” And from this inception, she picked the corner of 64th and Honore St. One key part of this story is tied to the quote, “If you want to know a problem, you have to get in proximity to it.”
With that kind of backing, Robbin needed to immerse herself in this and that’s where it all started.
It has grown. Robbin had first started with just a table full of Subway sandwiches on our street corners of 64th and Honore when our now Co-Executive Director, Quentin Mables, came up to her. Robbin told Quentin, “Hey, I’m thinking of having a house that is going to be rehabbed by the community. Do you want to take back your community?” Quentin looked at her, grabbed a trash bag and started cleaning…
She went on to purchase a home on that block that was up for demolition, but what she did not know at the time she started this project of the Peace House, was that our block was one of the most violent blocks in the entire city of Chicago. It was receiving an average of 12 phone calls to the police per day. Robbin actually hired contractors not to do the work on the house, but train men in the neighborhood that were part of the problem and teach them how to rehab a home.
It brought about a community of ownership and anoverall respect of the Peace House in general.
In a community where hopelessness is very real, building something, seeing the final result, being able to do something positive and put your name on it… that’s huge.
What is the process for people walking in to participate in the activities? Does anything have a cost associated with it?
Everything is free. We never charge the community for anything that we do. None of our services require any payment, we just ask that you show up with love and not judgment. Which is key, they’re already so many barriers in this community, we try to eliminate everything that we possibly can that would prevent them from not showing up.
So, if you were a youth, all you would have to do is walk through those doors, and then we’d just find out what you’re up to or what you want to be up to and what you’re interested in because at the root of everything that we do, we promote connection and belonging which is key for peace.
Whether that’s art, yoga, and mindfulness, basketball, getting a job… You have to feel like you belong in society.
You mention offering yoga as an activity for the youth. In what ways have you found it to be beneficial to them and have you seen a high participation or interest level from them?
Yes, definitely. With yoga, we actually started it before our house was even built. We did yoga in the street and the hilarious part of all this is that everyone called it “yogurt” in the beginning and some of the kids still do. It was something new. In Englewood, first and foremost, it is an opportunity desert, so, a new opportunity to move was considered “cool”. And a lot of people didn’t even know what yoga was. It wasn’t even a thing that white women do or anything, they just genuinely didn’t know what yoga was.
People gravitated towards it. So, we used to do yoga in the street and now that we have a Peace House, we do run community yoga at our house twice a week and then we have a community partnership with a local café that we do Saturday classes there.
Our yoga classes are very successful, and our kids do yoga every day. There’s scientific research that shows the power of yoga, specifically the power of mindfulness. Our kids have the odds already stacked up against them, we try to give them as many tools in their toolbelt as possible.
We as an organization, me as a human, I fundamentally believe that a breath can save a life. We’ve seen fights broken up by people just saying, “just breathe.” Our kids, unprompted, for our summer camp survey last year, about 36% of them said to the question: When asked what do you do when stressed out? They said, “I take a deep breath.”
So, that’s over 1/3, when stressed, they just breathe. We give the youth these tools and our elders too. All of our programs are intergenerational. When I teach a yoga class, there could be babies running around to seniors in chairs doing yoga.
You also just launched the grand opening of your Healing Justice Basketball Court, Congratulations! What made this court a priority on I Grow Chicago’s list?
Well, that story actually starts a few years back when the Peace House was first created. This block was incredibly violent and the commander at the time, when the idea was first brought up about putting a basketball court at the Peace House, he said: “over my dead body.”
There was some truth to his reasoning though, with the number of shootings that happen on open courts, it could cause more violence on the block if it isn’t under any control.
So, the idea really came from a few different factors and people, but our co-director, Quentin, had always wanted this. He said he always wanted a basketball court here, that was the legacy he wanted to create. A place where people can come together for peace.
Being that the location is in the heart of Chicago’s second most violent neighborhoods, what are some of the extra precautions that have been considered to ensure the basketball court and overall facility is a safe place?
Excellent question. First and foremost, it is a contained court. It’s got fencing on all four sides, you can only see through one side and its open with banners and stuff. So, unless you’re driving in front of it you can’t see who’s on the court. It will always be closed before dark. We’re not putting up lights. When it’s dark, it’s closed. We’ve got locks. It’s got security cameras, which is also for insurance purposes.
The most important thing is that this is a community court, so we’ve established community values. We have intergenerational community circles where we’ve come up with the values we want to see on the court and off the court. So, while we do have “rules”, which is no smoking, no gambling, no swearing, and no guns, we’re also going to have a sign that says,“As you walk onto this court these are the values that you’re agreeing to.” This will require some community policing on our behalf and on the guys, so if you get into a fight, you may not be able to play basketball on the court or a team again for the rest of the summer.
It’s really being clear with expectations and being clear about the consequences, and when that happens, sticking to it.
Furthermore, our elders will have the keys to the court. We have a wisdom council which is made up of community elders. They’re also going to be responsible for the opening and closing of the court so if they’re a lot of people hanging out in front of our court and there is a massive brawl or something, the court may not open for a week or two. And it sucks that the whole community may have to suffer, but if everyone is held accountable, then it will give people a chance to really think about their actions.
What are some of your overall top goals for the community in that particular area?
We have a strategic plan that actually goes out to 2020. We currently run 17 programs out of our small Peace House, we are in desperate need of space and people. The good news is that we currently now own 3 more houses on our block. Which is huge. So, we are expanding because our community needs it.
At first, there was no way we could’ve taken on more houses and have it fixed up by the community but now thefirst one that will go up is going to be our Family Resource Center. Within the next 2 years, we’ll probably have two more houses that through partnerships and is expanding, we’ll be able to accommodate our programs better.
We will also focus on really deepening the impact that we have. Our main goals as an organization are to have an impact within a 5-block radius from where our Peace House is. We’ve realized that the hurt is that deep. We really need to heal person by person, house by house, block by block.
If you could talk directly to the youth of Chicago about the benefits from joining I Grow Chicago, what would you tell them?
I would say the Peace House offers something to just about anybody. You tell us what you’re interested. I guarantee we have some sort of programming or connection to partner or pair you with what you’re interested in. I would also particularly tell the black and brown youth, that they have so much talent, that they belong in this world, they belong in this city and they’re the ones that are going to be responsible for bringing peace to Chicago.
If you would like to donate, volunteer or visit I Grow Chicago, learn more at www.igrowchicago.org.
Tia Muhammad, BS, is an award-winning freelance content & media creative, copywriter, blogger, digital designer, and marketing consultant. She owns the boutique content and digital media company, jackieGLDN|studio.