Teach People How To Garden – A Graffiti Experiment Fence Champion

The Graffiti Experiment is a project intended to inspire positive art and community unity instead of displaying hate or negativity in our urban neighborhoods. Champions for the project have donated money to help pay the fines my homeowners association charged me in order to help keep the painted fence experiment up for a longer period of time. In special thanks to the champions who are helping me to save the painted fence and supporting my peaceful protest against gang graffiti, I am writing a “Feature of the Month” blog post focused on the champion or the champion’s blog, cause, or company.

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Tina Koral is a woman who lives in my community who has been cheering my garden on for many years. With her donation to support the graffiti fence experiment, she encouraged me to publish information about The GardenWorks Project in exchange for sponsoring the month of January (photo of the January fence view above). Tina’s belief that we all should work together to help feed those in need has been an inspiration to me.  She founded The GardenWorks Project which is a program based in the western suburbs of Chicago, Illinois to help stimulate food security in our community. They have a community garden and also encourage volunteers to help their neighbors build food gardens they can use for their own food and share with food pantries, much like I’ve been doing with my front lawn vegetable garden.

Currently the volunteers of this grass-roots organization are trying to earn money in order to build more residential gardens so people can feed their families. They have set a goal in 2014 of providing 20 new families with the resources needed to grow food at home. They want to continue with the goal of reducing hunger in our community while taking pressure of our local food pantries and our food system. They also need to refresh 10 gardens from last year with fresh soil and compost so that those families can continue to build on the skills they’ve learned.

They need help — products, volunteers, composted soil, mulch, plants, seeds, and more. Please help contribute financially if you are not able to volunteer. They have a fund raising initiative where you can go and donate online to help families in the western suburbs of Chicago that are underprivileged learn how to garden and feed their families. Please follow the below link and donate if you are able so they can reach their earning goal of $4,500 for 2014.

LINK HERE TO DONATE TO HELP A FAMILY GARDEN – GARDENWORKS FUNDING PROJECT

To help the organization by volunteering (see volunteers below) or donating products or soil, please reach out to the organization by going to the volunteer page, simply follow this LINK.

Very special thanks to Tina Koral for championing our graffiti fence effort for January and for doing amazing things to help teach people how to feed themselves with a garden. Your kindness and belief in my effort is so very appreciated. Keep teaching people how to garden Tina – I love what The GardenWorks is doing!

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