2025 Spring at The Common|Wealth

Spring 2025 at The Common|Wealth was a time of growth, laying the foundation for an abundant summer season. Cooler spring weather delayed planting on the farm, while warm, indoor spaces like the Hoop Houses, Shelves of Life, Smart Pod, and Healing Garden Teahouse were bursting with seedlings ready to transplant as soon as the temperature warmed. Before long, the Community Farm and Gardens were bountiful with produce and seedlings ready for the launch of Well-ness Wednesdays & Neighborhood Markets and our peak summer season. Sweet Water Communiversity programming also thrived, with the RND [Re]Search Internship, Seeding the Future, and Neighborhood Academy programs in full swing throughout the Spring. As vital components of our practice, carpentry and Civic Arts were continually integrated throughout the season as we continued to cultivate The Common|Wealth and GROW the neighborhood.

Read more about 2025 Spring Happenings at The Common|Wealth.

SWF Communiversity Programming

This spring, the Communiversity featured a dynamic range of programs, including academic year offerings such as the RND [Re]Search Internship and Seeding the Future programs, which continued throughout the spring, as well as year-round programs like Neighborhood Academy, ramping up in preparation for the peak summer season. New educational tools — such as One Sheets and Crop Cue Cards — were developed this spring to provide valuable resources for participants across programs, build a common language, and reinforce shared knowledge and techniques. A snapshot of each Spring Communiversity offering is provided below.

Seeding the Future 

This spring, second grade students from Beasley Academic Center visited The Common|Wealth in April and May to conclude their Seeding the Future (STF) engagement for the academic year. Their spring visits focused on seasonality, seed germination, plant life cycles, the water cycle and energy. Students learned about the vital role of pollinators (bees and butterflies), creating nature mosaics their honor. They helped transplant the marigold and chard seedlings propagated from seed inside during an earlier classroom visit in March.

A key part of their spring experience was understanding the sun’s role in generating energy. They experienced the sun's warmth firsthand in greenhouse spaces like the Work-Shop, Hoop Houses, and SmartPod and saw how the sun is a vital to photosynthesis - the process of transforming energy from the sun into food for the plants, which is necessary for plant growth, including growing food. They saw how the SmartPod’s solar panels harnessed the sun's energy to charge a battery for lights. They gained new energy from the Green Sun Smoothie, made with fresh greens from the Community Farm, with a blender powered with solar energy. The academic year culminated in a celebration at the Sankofa Living Memories Civic Arts Project in the Civic Arts Church, where their watercolors, handwriting, and silhouettes from February were proudly displayed on the Community Connections wall.

RND Re-Search Program

The Spring 2025 RND Re-Search internship focused on Policy in Action, translating re-search methodologies from SWF’s We the Publics… and  Re-Mapping the Publics exhibits to SWF’s Values-Based Partner, Sankofa Village Project, rooted in the Homewood neighborhood of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Interns identified parallels between SWF and Sankofa Village through research on their historical context, scale, and shared strategies for community regeneration and used their findings and analysis to translate real-life solutions from SWF’s Portfolio of Possibilities to Sankofa Village.

The Spring 2025 RND Re-Search Program concluded in April with a final presentation at the Carnegie Library-Homewood, which was broadcast virtually to the SWF Community and VBPs nationwide, as part of the April 2025 Convergence with Sankofa Village (Pittsburgh).

Neighborhood Academy & Community Building Workshops

In the spring, Neighborhood Academy programming continued with hands-on learning focused on preparing the Community Farm and Garden for the upcoming summer season. During their sessions, they seeded and prepped the rows and garden beds for seedlings and then transplanted the seedlings into the rows. Many of these same seedlings would last throughout the entire summer. Neighborhood Academy participants also supported the initial launch of Neighborhood Market and Wellness Wednesday, stocking the Meeting House with seedlings for the market and participating in activities on the farm that would later translate into summer Wellness Wednesday activities. 

Building on the momentum from the fall, Community Building Workshops continued this spring, bringing together Neighborhood Academy and other neighborhood residents. Participants worked together to learn new carpentry skills and refresh their memory of carpentry in the fall through the introduction to and building of both new and existing SWF designs. The SWF team led community members in building Interlocking Ponies and Burros, Pocket Park Bench, and the new Solutionary stackable bench design. Several of these designs and the resulting builds are now being utilized across various neighborhoods throughout Chicago. In addition, the techniques gained and relationships created also supported Spring Build-Its of garden beds and other SWF furniture designs.

2025 Well-ness Wednesday + Neighborhood Market Season Launch

Well-ness Wednesday

The 2025 season of SWF’s Well-ness Wednesday ritual, a weekly ritual of community engagement and sharing the abundance of the Community Farm, launched in April. Throughout the spring, SWF welcomed Neighborhood Academy, SWF community members, and volunteers each Wednesday to work the land, engage in civic arts, and share a farm-to-table meal. This spring, Well-ness Wednesday participants, including Neighborhood Academy, helped the SWF team prepare the Community Farm and Community Garden for peak growing season by clearing out old crops, topping off farm rows and garden beds with soil, transplanting seedlings, and supporting weeding, pruning, harvesting, and composting. Civic Artist-in-Residence, Charles Pryor, added to the vibrant atmosphere of Well-ness Wednesdays with live musical performances and encouraged people from the SWF team and community to share their musical talents.

Neighborhood Market

In May, SWF launched the 2025 Neighborhood Market season, offering seedlings to neighbors, growers, and Values-Based Partners, along with produce from the Community Garden and new SWF furniture designs. To prepare for the Neighborhood Market, the Meeting House was filled with thousands of seedlings ranging from cold weather crops like collards, kale, and chard to hot weather crops like tomatoes and peppers, along with herbs and flowers. The market’s energy steadily grew each week, with both new and returning visitors lingering to connect with each other in the shade, create art at the civic arts table, and enjoy music by SWF Civic Artist-in-Residence, Charles Pryor. Neighborhood Market will continue through October, featuring produce available and in season on the Community Farm, along with SWF furniture designs.

GROWing the Neighborhood with Civic Arts & Carpentry 

Spring 2025 Civic Arts

Spring 2025’s Civic Arts programming launched with a celebration of SWF’s Elder Council Member, Mama Agnes’ 89th birthday, along with a Civic Artists Talk at Civic Arts Church.  The talk featured the four artists highlighted in SWF's inaugural exhibit at Civic Arts Church, Constellations & Throughlines – Ricardia Davis, Rhonda Long,  Rudy Taylor, Jr., and Derise “Mama Afua” Tolliver.

In May, the Sankofa Living Memories Civic Arts Project was installed in Civic Arts Church. This project drew inspiration from Constellations & Throughlines, showcasing a collection of collages created by second-grade students from Beasley Academic Center, the SWF Team, Neighborhood Academy, and other members of the SWF Community. Participants used watercolor techniques demonstrated by Rhonda Long to create a night sky background with stars, alongside a cut-out of each person’s profile, and handwritten renditions of a Harriet Tubman quote.

“Every great dream begins with a dreamer. | Always remember, you have within you | the strength, | the patience, | and the passion | to reach for the stars | to change the world” - Harriet Tubman

Throughout the spring, SWF also continued to broaden its civic arts offerings to include nature coloring and cut-outs. This activity celebrates the natural materials that are abundant each season, such as dandelions and violets in the spring. It also pays tribute to the paper cutting techniques of Ricardia Davis, whose work was featured in Constellations & Throughlines.

Spring 2025 Carpentry

This spring, SWF has been focused on refreshing existing carpentry projects with new, elevated designs. The latest projects include re-designed stackable seats and benches, interlocking ponies, sun chairs, and pop-up tables. These new designs are a lighter version of the originals, using 1x wood rather than 2x. The new designs allow for the incorporation of tools like jigsaw, router, and table saw, thus also aim to increase the SWF team's experience with each tool and technique. Leftover material from each build was intentionally repurposed, rather than wasted, to create geometric wall-art and picture frames.

In addition, several designed objects and spaces across The Common|Wealth have been refreshed with new designs and updates this spring. The four Monarch Towers on the Community Farm were rebuilt. Originally constructed in 2020, these towers were designed to collect, store, and distribute water and electricity on the Community Farm. The Monarch Tower design honors the sacred gifts of nature, which create life  – water, energy from the sun, and food – aiming to increase our awareness of the climate in Chicago and our understanding of the lifecycles of water, energy, and food. 

The Healing Garden Teahouse structure, built during the summer of 2023, was enclosed with polycarbonate and repurposed as an additional greenhouse space, used to cultivate flower seedlings. The first floor of the SmartPod was refreshed with new MDO walls and plexi-glass panels, which serve as dry-erase boards to further enhance interactive learning in the space. Finally, new custom-built pendant lights were designed and installed in Civic Arts Church.