Sweet Water Foundation jumped into 2021 ready to get work done.

At the start of 2021, we refined our processes, applied care to our structures and spaces, and modified our team’s daily and seasonal flows. With COVID-19 best practices in place, SWF spent the first few months of 2021 rehearsing for the future and preparing to welcome visitors, apprentices, fellows, and neighbors back to The Commonwealth in spring. 

In 2021, we embraced the practice of Sankofa...

In celebration of Black History Month, Sweet Water Foundation launched the Sankofa Living Memories Series, an ongoing event series seeking to disrupt and [re]construct traditional historical preservation methods and amplify the rich African American heritage and history in our midst. The series’ launch featured 3 virtual events in February 2021 - Reconstructing Historical Preservation, Food As Medicine, and The Histories In Our Midst - that welcomed a diverse and intergenerational mix of individuals from across the country to join in the conversations.

reaching back to the knowledge and wisdom of the past and bringing it into the present to build a more radical and imaginative future.

“Sankofa” remained a theme throughout the year, providing a renewed focus on uplifting the wisdom of elders and ancestors that inspired new programming and experiences that share and preserve their Living Memories and practices. Sweet Water Foundation engaged an intergenerational audience of children, Apprentices, Fellows, neighbors, SWF Mentors, and members of the SWF Wisdom Council in hands-on, urban ecology experiences every week - from Wellness Wednesdays to Cooking Demonstrations at Think-Do House to drum circles and dance at the weekly Farmer’s Market.

 We continued to cultivate The Commonwealth...

From small design + build projects, to large rehabilitation projects, to the daily care of our structures and spaces, The Commonwealth continued to grow in 2021.

This year, we:

• Created a new suite of ‘Waste to Resource’ furniture pieces and homegoods;

• Constructed a third Hoop House on the Community Farm to expand indoor growing and learning capacity during the winter;

• Designed and built the “Shelf of Life,” a new product that maximizes indoor growing space throughout the entire year;  

• Began exterior renovations of Civic Arts Church, moving closer to the opening of a new community design center in 2022; 

• Completed a series of rehab + repair projects for neighbors to improve community safety and wellness, including installation of solar lights in alleyways, mending fences, and home weatherproofing; and 

• Installed two permanent installations - a hydrant in the Community Gardens and functioning bank-vault door at Civic Arts Church - as part of the Toward Common Cause: Art, Social Change, and the MacArthur Fellows Program at 40, an expansive, multi-venue exhibition taking place throughout 2021 organized by the Smart Museum of Art.

and feed the community.

The bounty of The Commonwealth provided nourishment all year-round. Produce from the hoop houses fed dozens weekly throughout the winter and early spring seasons. In May, SWF launched its annual Seedling Market distributing 1,000’s of seedlings to neighbors and local community gardens. And, beginning in June, the weekly Farmer’s Market and open Community Garden provided locally grown, fresh produce to more than 400 individuals, families, elders, and neighbors each week. Sweet Water Foundation also continued supplying produce to local mutual aid organizations each week to reach residents beyond The Commonwealth.

Sweet Water Foundation re-opened The Commonwealth to visitors near and far,…

In 2021, Sweet Water Foundation safely welcomed in-person visitors to The Commonwealth for tours, arts + cultural events and installations, field lessons, volunteer opportunities, Wellness Wednesdays, and Friday Farmers Markets.

engaged learners of all ages in our shared urban ecology,

The Commonwealth re-emerged as a dynamic site for transdisciplinary learning, engaging an intergenerational audience of youth, local residents, artists, educators, students, and practitioners in hands-on urban ecology programming, including: 

Urban Ecology Apprentice and Fellow Program | SWF welcomed in-person cohorts of Urban Ecology Apprentices and Global Fellows for the first time since the onset of COVID-19. Apprentices included local area residents and young people from Chicago Housing Authority’s One Summer Chicago program. Urban Ecology Global Fellows represented Chicago State University, Harvard Graduate School of Design, University of Chicago, and Yale University with disciplines spanning Media/Photography, Social Work, Architecture, Urban Design, and Public Policy.

Seeding the Future | In 2021, the Sweet Water team relaunched its Seeding the Future program, which engages young learners in hands-on, project-based learning experiences that follow the seed-to-table process and exposes them to a wide range of academic disciplines and essential life skills (e.g., biology, math, gardening, nutrition, etc.). SWF delivered virtual lessons and in-school programming; distributed seedlings, produce, and learning materials; and hosted its first field trip to The Commonwealth in more than a year with 2nd grade students from Beasley Academic Center. 

Homeschool Programming | This year, SWF also began hosting homeschool students for hands-on projects and lessons as part of SWF’s Wellness Wednesday community engagement days. 

immersed the community in Arts + Culture,

SWF’s practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development is deeply rooted in arts and culture, and seeks to create the spaces and conditions within which local artists, educators, residents, and youth engage in healing and creative practices that build community. 

As an emerging Arts + Culture Hub on Chicago’s South Side, The Commonwealth immersed the community in Arts + Culture in 2021 via programming such as:   

Sankofa Living Memories Series | An ongoing event series that seeks to amplify the rich African American heritage and history in our midst, the series’ featured 3 virtual events that welcomed a diverse and intergenerational mix of individuals from across the country to join in the conversations.

Civic Arts Fridays | In January 2021 we launched Civic Arts Fridays to activate the Civic Arts Church and build momentum towards its transformation into a community design center. As the weather warmed up, Civic Arts Fridays transitioned outdoors, becoming a weekly ritual after weekly Farmer’s Markets and a long week of hard work. Apprentices, Fellows, core team members, and visitors creatively ended each week with an art project, oftentimes, featuring natural and/or reclaimed materials. Projects included mulberry dyeing, leaf printing, and screen-printing. 

Fourth Annual Juneteenth Celebration | This summer, SWF hosted its Fourth Annual Juneteenth Celebration at The Commonwealth. Due to continued Covid precautions, the event was held on a smaller scale, welcoming ~200 individuals to create, build, and celebrate freedom + community. 

Culinary Creations | Cooking the bountiful harvest that we cultivate became a weekly ritual during the Urban Ecology summer program. Fellows and Apprentices cooked new meals for each other every week with produce from the SWF Community Farm. After the summer, the new culinary ritual continued with members of the SWF Wisdom Council joining SWF team members to cook meals during Wellness Wednesdays.

Harambee | This fall we hosted the Association of Black Psychologists Harambee at The Commonwealth, welcoming more than 30 psychologists, parents, educators, and neighbors for a hands-on event that focused on healing and connection.

and formalized our national network of Values-Based Partners.

Since 2015, SWF has been cultivating a national network of individuals and organizations engaged in regenerative neighborhood practices. In 2021, SWF formalized this work into the Values-Based Partners Network, a network which now includes individuals, representing more than a dozen grassroots and neighborhood-based organizations, nonprofits, and academic institutions across  Boston; Charlotte; Detroit; Milwaukee; St. Louis; Wayne, VA, and more.  

Throughout 2021, the Values-Based Partner network met virtually every month to share challenges, successes, and ideas for creating and sustaining regenerative spaces that holistically heal and build communities.  Beyond monthly calls, members made in-person connections at SWF’s Fourth Annual Juneteenth Celebration and SWF welcomed partners from Detroit, Milwaukee, and Boston for hands-on, in-person visits. For many VBP’s, the in-person visits were the first opportunity to meet one another in person after almost a year of engaging in virtual meetings.

 Through these works and critical connections made, the Sweet Water “Communiversity” has emerged,

The Communiversity is the next evolution of Sweet Water Foundation’s suite of programs; bringing the education and outreach programming of Sweet Water Academy and SWF’s growing arts + cultural programming together under one umbrella of integrated programming. The Communiversity recognizes that taking a holistic, intergenerational, and trans-disciplinary approach to healing our urban ecology is critical if we are to tackle our city and society’s greatest challenges. 

Far too often, traditional academic experiences are exclusive, siloed by discipline, and employ methods that limit learning to mere engagement with texts, case studies, and classroom-based projects. SWF’s Communiversity fills the void between theory and practice by offering real world experiences steeped in theory and in fellowship with people on the ground. 

Beyond onsite engagement at The Commonwealth, the Communiversity delivered keynote talks and lectures to 2,000+ individuals to introduce SWF’s practice to a national audience including the Urban Farming Institute Conference, Architecture League of New York, School of Architecture + Design at Virginia Tech, Parsons Graduate School of Design, and North Carolina State University College of Design. In fall 2021, SWF also launched the RND Research Program in collaboration with university partners. This research-based program grounds students in the historical context and present day realities of urban communities that are facing a complex and layering of crises in order to prepare them for transformative, hands-on, and community-rooted work. SWF provided internships and co-led design studios with students from Cornell University, Harvard Graduate School of Design, and Northeastern University to engage in research projects that will be presented in June 2022.

demonstrating the unbounded possibilities when We The Publics… move beyond the bounds of economic rationality.

In Summer 2021, we installed the 2nd exhibit in the Thought Barn - We the Publics...from Bounded Rationality to Unbounded Possibilities - to provoke a reframing and reclaiming of the ‘Publics’ for all by sharing the collective works and perspective of the Sweet Water Foundation community. The exhibit is a catalytic assemblage of art, artifacts, and history exploring the many facets and dimensions of the publics and public trust. We the Publics... lifts the veil on untold histories and shows us the solutions that lie outside the bounds of economic rationality.

Most importantly, We the Publics... showcases how the practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development and cultivation of The Commonwealth stands as the “in-real-life” vision, or leverage point, needed to move humanity beyond the rhetoric of revolution towards the paradigm shift required to solve the urgent and pervasive problems of our times.

In 2022, the collective works of Sweet Water Foundation and The Commonwealth will become that which you can’t undo. 

Sweet Water Foundation entered 2020 with a clarity of vision (20/20) and as the events of the global pandemic and political uprisings unfolded, the essential nature of our work was made apparent. In 2021, we got work done... continuing to cultivate The Commonwealth as a place filled with spaces of healing, nourishment, beauty, and community. 

Today, as we enter 2022, we continue to live amidst an international crisis of Public Trust; a pervasive unravelling of faith in leadership, a void of common truths, and an absence of shared humanity that has debilitated humankind at a time when collective action is a precondition for our continued survival.  As much of the world seeks to ‘return to normal,’ choosing to turn a blind eye to the multitude of crises we face, Sweet Water Foundation is demonstrating a new way forward.  

Hope lies within the paradigm shift happening at the interstice of grounded design, real work, and the values of an Essential Economy.  The Commonwealth has emerged as a new paradigm, demonstrating new ways of seeing and living that ignite the radical imagination. The magic and possibilities of The Commonwealth cannot be unseen and, in turn, will regenerate into new actions, new resonances, that have the possibility to catalyze socio-ecological transformation across Chicago and beyond. 

In 2022, as we continue to share our practice and the works of Sweet Water Foundation and its Values-Based Partners near and far, the new paradigm of The Commonwealth and We The Publics… will spread from 10 acres of The Commonwealth, to 10 neighborhoods, to 10 cities, to 10 countries, and beyond.  In 2022, these collective works will root such that they cannot be undone.

There GROWS the neighborhood. 

None of this would be possible without the SWF Team + Family…

and the tremendous generosity of our Supporters and Partners, whose time and financial, material, and professional resources were invaluable.