The main competition for Quilen and Hannah Blackwell, owners of Southside Blooms, a Chicago nonprofit that hires at-risk young adults and children, isn’t other florists. This is the eternal charm of the streets.
Hannah Blackwell said of the youth who had previously participated in their program, “We heard that some of the kids in our after-school program joined a gang when they grew up. The Kansas native said of a former participant on the program, “I don’t know if Shawn is still alive. »Located in the predominantly black Englewood neighborhood on Chicago’s South Side is the flower shop Southside Blooms, which operates under the phrase “empowering flowers.” The Blackwells are a family of three who have lived in a food desert for ten years due to poverty, gang and gun violence, and lack of job opportunities. Quilen Blackwell said: “What you see in the media is true. »
Chicago, one of the most dangerous cities in the country, recorded 617 homicides in 2023. The same year, 327 homicides occurred in Los Angeles and 386 in New York. The black wells say there have been fewer shootings in Englewood. The Chicago Police Department said in February that the city saw double-digit declines in shootings, homicides and gunshot victims compared to the same period in 2023.
The Blackwells’ son, however, is still terrified and hides in their bed at night when he hears gunshots. In Englewood, dangers remind a godly couple of their ultimate needs. Wisconsin native Quilen Blackwell said, “I felt like the Lord was calling me downtown. »
It is in Englewood that you will find the Chicago Eco House. The florist’s nonprofit teaches youth life and career skills through sustainable urban agriculture through farming, flower production and flower sales. Southside Blooms is a group of young creatives who design floral arrangements and centerpieces for local events like weddings. People can work on the off-grid farms or at the store for as long as they want.
“It goes beyond just teaching you fundamental skills for ten weeks and just saying, ‘Good luck finding a job,’” Quilen Blackwell said. “In our situation, we are the careers and the jobs. »
The Blackwells want to convert abandoned buildings into thriving flower farms which will ultimately provide long-term employment for local young people. They will thus be able to develop flower sales as a key industry. They claim that by doing this they will stay off the streets. “We want them to be proud of Englewood and ask themselves, ‘What can I do to make it better?’ rather than: “As soon as I can, I’ll get out of here.” said Hannah Blackwell.
The Blackwells launched Southside Blooms in 2020 and Chicago Eco House a decade before that. They have since converted five abandoned Chicago properties into solar-powered flower farms. There are two lots that make up the Chicago Eco House. The other three are owned by the county and city, but the Blackwells are allowed to use them. The programs transform abandoned, trash-filled neighborhoods into pesticide-free gardens that attract wildlife like birds, bees and grasshoppers.
Everyone is happy
Their Southside Blooms professional development program has approximately 35 people, with members typically ranging in age from 16 to 25 years old. As the organization grows, the two say they plan to open a second Southside Blooms flower shop on Chicago’s West Side. Armani Hopkins, a 16-year-old junior who rose to team leader two years after joining Southside Blooms, plans to stay on the team even after enrolling at the University of Chicago for a degree in microbiology.
Armani said: “Working at Southside Blooms has had a very positive impact on my life. » “It taught me that there is more to life, that black neighborhoods are beautiful, and that everyone deserves respect and love from each other.”
Dionta White, 27, has been part of the Chicago Eco House farm team for two years. He says that since starting the course, he has become better at managing his emotions and has learned more about how businesses operate. He also understands the value of commitment.
“Working on the farm really made me realize that if you work, hard work will pay off,” White said. “You need to visualize yourself being successful in everything you do and pay attention to it all the time. Every movement you make has a purpose. Englewood was a prosperous neighborhood before the Great Depression; by 1930 it was home to Chicago’s second largest business center.
The city was a hub of the Great Migration, which saw 6 million black people leave the South and travel across the country between 1910 and 1970. Among them were Quillen Blackwell’s maternal grandparents, who had by then moved from Arkansas to Milwaukee to work as sharecroppers. . White families who fought to live in Englewood during Chicago’s neighborhood restructuring in the 1930s still live there, at least a few decades later.
In addition to redlining, restrictive racist covenants in force in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere helped keep whites concentrated in particular districts. After a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court ruling rejecting the practice, more blacks moved to Englewood, causing the area’s white population to decline.
Redlining, white flight, and disinvestment during the Great Depression damaged Englewood’s small businesses and drove down real estate values. During the crack pandemic of the 1980s, Chicago suffered greatly. According to Quilen Blackwell, the outsourcing of jobs that took place over the next ten years further weakened Englewood’s economic base.
According to White, there was no way to hang out in Englewood parks in the 2000s. As he remembers, “they were always getting shot at.” The Illinois Policy Institute reports that 40 percent of residents in this once-rich neighborhood are poor and face drug addiction, violence, poverty and prostitution.
Southside Blooms is located in a safe area
The Blackwells came together with the intention of improving downtown. In 2015, they moved into a cheap house in Englewood, had it fixed up in six months, and have lived there ever since.
“Our first youth program took place in our backyard; everything you see today with (Chicago) Eco House and Southside Blooms started inside our home,” Quilen Blackwell said. The Chicago Eco House grows the flowers and Southside Blooms serves as a distribution center, according to the couple.
“We primarily distribute our services throughout the Chicagoland area and northwest Indiana suburbs as part of our distribution approach. By doing this, we redistribute resources from well-resourced communities back to the community, according to Hannah Blackwell. Rather than operating like a normal flower shop that relies on passing customers, we keep the door secure. She said everyone inside was in a safe place.
The Blackwells started their indoor bulb forcing business in 2023, allowing them to grow flowers year-round and providing continued work for the farm team despite Chicago’s unproductive winters. Since last year, much of the winter flower growing, primarily tulips, has taken place in the basement of the Chicago Eco House. There, the Blackwells hope to grow about 30,000 bulbs a year.
“We haven’t been able to provide that year-round stable employment opportunity, and I feel like that’s one of the reasons we’ve lost some of these young men ( who left the program),” Hannah Blackwell said. The two said that while the typical participant stayed at Chicago Eco House for three months in 2018, the average length of stay increased to six months, with some participants staying for up to three years.
In 2019, the FBI Chicago Field Office awarded Quilen Blackwell the Director’s Community Leadership Award in recognition of his work using the Chicago Eco House to combat poverty and violence. The organization said more than thirty high school students now receive scholarships to help finance their studies in urban agriculture thanks to the efforts of the nonprofit’s co-founder.