Green Blessings: From Pavement to Green Open Space
CNT continues to create natural open space in urban environments and raise awareness about the potential for community greening. The latest project is at the Saint Margaret Mary Church and School in Rogers Park, on Chicago’s north side. On October 18th, students and parishioners worked with Green Corps to plant almost 500 native Illinois prairie plants in the main parking lot of the church and school. The ‘green infrastructure’ was blessed and officially dedicated by St Margaret Mary’s priest, Father Jim Barrett, on October 28th.
And as Nobel Peace Prize laureate Dr. Wangari Maathai declared, while speaking at the recent dedication of another CNT garden project at the Al Raby High School, “it is this type of activity that should be replicated a billion times throughout the world.”
The Green Infrastructure research and demonstration project, funded by the U.S. EPA, is a partnership with the City of Chicago to gather engineering and soil data on the performance of stormwater best management practices (BMPs) that use the power of plants to absorb and clean rainfall runoff. The gardens were built with Green Corps, a City-sponsored community landscaping and job training program. CNT will use these features to demonstrate how green infrastructure can fit into attractive neighborhoods and improve local drainage problems.
