On Friday, July 12, a group of 7 nursing students from Malcolm X College visited The Commons with their instructor, Dr. Dawn Wilson, for a tour and to get their hands in the soil at the Sweet Water Community Farm. This is the second group of nursing students that Dr. Wilson has brought to The Commons to introduce concepts of growing healthy food and expose them to community health resources, such as Sweet Water Foundation, that they may not know exist.

Meet Angela Ford...Angela has been in the SWF family since July of 2018. She grew up on the South side of Chicago and has a deep passion for family, tradition, and honoring her ancestors. Angela has spent time at The Commons documenting and sharing the story of the surrounding community and families by archiving pictures and documents found in the area. SWF is excited to feature Angela this month because her relationships with SWF demonstrates another dimension of Sweet Water Foundation that is not always talked about.

In partnership with MIT CREATE, the inaugural Sweet Water Academy Immersion took place over a 2-week period in June (June 9-22) and culminated with SWF’s Second Annual Juneteenth Celebration at The Commons.  The MIT CREATE team, led by CREATE co-founders and MIT faculty John Kennedy and Kate Mytty, included 3 MIT graduate students in Architecture and Urban Planning and 1 graduate student of Public Health-Epidemiology at Louisiana State University Health Sciences Center.

On Sunday, June 16 the Lightbox Theater + Gallery was transformed into a yoga studio for an hour of Vinyasa Flow yoga. Ten people gathered in the Thought Barn to relax their minds, activate their muscles, and stretch their bodies during the session led by yoga instructor, Clif Hurt. Clif’s family has been visiting Sweet Water Foundation to harvest produce and enjoy The Commons for over a year. SWF was excited to welcome a member of the SWF Family to lead the first yoga session at The Commons.

Jesse has been part of the Sweet Water family since 2010 when he worked with SWF to cultivate partnerships with schools and community groups across Milwaukee and Chicago. Although his professional journey has led him to his current role as Executive Director of the Green Heart Project in Charleston, South Carolina, Jesse continues to be a close collaborator and an extended member of the SWF team. Green Heart Project uses agriculture as a tool for personal development, education, and community engagement, and will be developing an urban garden in downtown Charleston. SWF is excited to feature Jesse as a partner and lifelong member of the SWF family.

On March 5, Sweet Water Foundation team members, Devontae Phillips and Armani McCalister, flew to Charleston, South Carolina to lead a fractal building workshop with volunteers and staff of The Green Heart Project. This trip was part of what will be an ongoing exchange program with The Green Heart Project and the first, formal exchange program of SWF’s newly launched, Sweet Water Academy.  Sweet Water Academy seeks to share SWF’s practice of Regenerative Neighborhood Development with educators, practitioners, and community-based organizations across Chicago and beyond via exchange programs, workshops, courses, practitioner residencies, fellowships, and train-the-trainer programs.  The exchange was initiated by Jesse Blom, Executive Director of The Green Heart Project, who previously worked with Sweet Water Foundation as an educator and grower in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

On Friday, March 8, 2019, SWF Human-In-Residence, Tanya Scruggs Ford, led the second workshop in Sweet Water Foundation’s Radical Imagination Workshop Series in the Lightbox Theater + Gallery. The recently launched Radical Imagination Workshop Series promotes artists of color and provides a space for an intergenerational audience to imagine new possibilities and express creativity through art. The first Radical Imagination Workshop, which took place in February, was a Community Sing @ The Commons with the Urban Bush Women that welcomed more than 80 people of all ages to share their story through song + dance. The second workshop of the Radical Imagination series introduced the SWF Core Team to a new artistic medium using materials commonly found at The Commons.

On February 28, 2019, 12 students from Senn High School visited The Commons looking for inspiration as they worked on Design4Democracy, a project supported by the Chicago Learning Exchange. The project engaged teens in a collaboration with Convergence Design Labs to redesign their school’s library into a “student-owned civic media space.” During their visit, the students were exposed to the artistic and creative aspects of The Commons and left with inspiration to implement into their project.

On Tuesday, February 26, Sweet Water Foundation sparked the Radical Imagination of more than 80 children, families, students from Chicago Free School, and artists in the  Lightbox Theater & Gallery during the Urban Bush Women's Community Sing at The Commons. The space was activated by the power of song, dance, and community. The Community Sing was the first workshop in the “Radical Imagination Workshop Series,” welcoming an intergenerational audience to express their creativity and story through song + dance.

Meet Danny Salomon... Danny first visited The Commons in September of 2017 while visiting Chicago. In 2018, he came back to learn more about SWF’s practice and, within six months, was invited to become a SWF Human-in-Residence with a focus on Design+Build. Humans-in-Residence are Lifelong learners, artists, and contributors of all ages and talents that engage in an immersive and generative experience with lasting impact. Danny’s residency took place from  February 23, 2019 - March March 9, 2019. During this intensive, 2-week period at The Commons, Danny stayed in the Think-Do House and worked alongside the SWF team on the design of the [Re]Construction House, design and build a storage system for a shipping container, and, most importantly, becoming part of the SWF Family.

For a third time in less than a year, the Chicago International Puppet Theater Festival Neighborhood Tour hosted a puppet show at Sweet Water Foundation. On January 18th, 2019, SWF welcomed more than 25 people to the Lightbox Theater + Gallery located in SWF’s Thought Barn for an international puppet show. This event was not only the first performance at The Commons in 2019, but also the inaugural, public art performance in the Lightbox Theater + Gallery.

On a cold afternoon in early January, the SWF team visited The Smart Museum of Art to [de]construct the Radical [Re]Constructions exhibit. Most of the exhibit returned to The Commons for a new project, the [Re]Construction House, but the bench that was the focal point of the exhibit, found a home in the courtyard outside the University of Chicago’s Physics Building.