Former teacher teams with Sauk Village church in Victory Garden effort to connect people and healthy food

Sean Ruane, an educator, was looking to forge stronger connections between people, what they eat, and the places where they live, and he found a model by looking back in time.

“During the 1940s in the Victory Garden era, Chicago was producing up to 40% of its own fruits and vegetables from homes and community gardens,” he said. “There’s definitely a precedent.”

Ruane helped found Just Roots Chicago, which operates two farms: the 3-acre It Takes a Village Community Farm in Sauk Village and the half acre Saint James Community Farm on Chicago’s South Side. It’s a way to “expand access to local, sustainably grown food,” he said.

“I slowly started to realize over time how disconnected we are with food,” he said.

After six years working as a teacher, Ruane said he felt called to do something about it. He tapped into his family’s farming history — his grandparents who immigrated from Ireland ran a farm and other relatives still farm. Growing up gardening with his mother, he wanted to share “the joy that I felt being outdoors and gardening and growing food.”

Born and raised on Chicago’s Southwest Side, Ruane hoped to create a space to provide people “high quality food, culturally affirming, that they are going to want to use in their kitchens, that could inspire them to learn more about food and cooking, and a space to connect more deeply with their neighbors and their earth.”

“Those things all seemed to connect for me,” he said. “I was looking to make a pivot and figure out a way to blend my passion for education with something for growing food in a local community.”

He enrolled in a Windy City Harvest program, a collaboration between the Chicago Botanic Garden and City Colleges of Chicago that offered a certification in sustainable urban agriculture.

“After you graduate, they provide an opportunity for folks looking to start an organization in that field, almost like an incubator program, so we were an incubator for two years, which gave us a chance to establish our organization and business model.”

The farms he helped establish employ a few dedicated staff members who run the farms and help with volunteers, educational tours and community events. Some of their produce is sold at a farm stand in Sauk Village and some is distributed to food pantries and other organizations such as health clinics serving people with diet-related conditions. The rest goes to a community supported agriculture subscription program, or CSA, with income based pricing that offers fresh produce every one or two weeks.

Subscribers who volunteer six hours a month receive an additional discount. This year the two farms have a combined 110 subscriptions, which typically sell out by March, he said.

“They can pack their bag so they can get what they want,” Ruane said.

Among the crops at the Sauk Village farm grows are leafy greens, lettuce, spinach, kale, Swiss chard, root vegetables such as scallions, carrots and beets, as well as summer crops such as tomatoes, eggplant, watermelon and peppers.

“I would say collard greens are a popular item for us (as well as) carrots, sweet potatoes, tomatoes, peppers and cabbage to name a few,” Ruane said

The Chicago farm was established four years ago and the farm in Sauk Village was built out in spring 2022. Ruane said they’d like to add two more greenhouses on the south suburban property, and they have planted 35 fruit trees — peach, plums and apples — and installed beehives behind them.

The Sauk Village farm was developed on land owned by Grace United Church of Christ, which has been led by the Rev. Melody Seaton for nine years.

Seaton had visualized a program teaching people who had been incarcerated how to rehab vacant homes, but growing demand at the church’s food pantry paired with the closing of the village’s only grocery store changed her mind. A conversation with Ruane toward the end of 2019 sealed the deal.

“After talking with Sean at the first meeting, I was sold. He exudes a sincerity about it. Since I’m about justice issues anyway, God is doing something different — moving in a different direction,” she said. “He was the selling point with me.”

Seaton didn’t just provide the space. She became fully involved, volunteering at the farm last year during its first season.

“I wanted to experience it so I was out there quite frequently doing different parts of it — picking, planting, washing,” she said.

Members of her church love the farm too, she said.

“They love talking about it and telling others about what our little church is doing.”

It’s important work, Seaton said, that adds to the health of the community in an area where many people live at the poverty level and are more likely to become sick or die because of preventable diseases.

“Organic foods are so expensive, and to be able to say to people in the community that you are so special to us, your health is so important to us, we go the extra (mile) so that you can eat better … that was something that was important to me,” she said. “If we teach people how to eat better, they’ll live longer.”

Tony Perry, a high school junior who works as a paid farm assistant at the Sauk Village farm, said his favorite part of the job is projects such as building fences.

Perry didn’t have much experience beyond helping his mother plant flowers but is enjoying the work.

“It’s my first job,” he said. He also likes his co-workers. “They’re cool. They all bring good vibes.”

One of those co-workers is farm associate Beverly Long, a retiree and member of the church.

“I love the sun. There are no hard days out here,” she said, adding that she finds it hard to be inside this time of year. Long also loves “being able to come out first thing in the morning and smell fresh air — see the sun rising if I’m early enough.”

In 2020, to gear up for work on the farm, Long received an advance certification in urban horticulture from Chicago City Colleges/Chicago Botanical Gardens, a Roots of Success certification and food handler certification.

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Long works Tuesdays and Wednesdays on whatever is needed, whether it’s turning crops over from spring to summer or her pet building project to create two 40-foot flower beds so the farm stand and subscription boxes can offer cut blooms.

She said she loved “playing in the dirt” growing up on Chicago’s Southeast Side and had her own garden in Richton Park before moving back to Chicago. She believes the program already is a success.

“Feeding the poor, bringing it together as only this type of therapy can make happen” is worthwhile, she said. “I think it’s picking up year by year. They’re telling their neighbors and their friends.”

Just Roots Chicago also holds events such as the next Farm to Table Dinner, set for 7 to 10 p.m. July 29 at the Chicago farm, 2936 S. Wabash Ave. Information is at https://justrootschicago.org/.

It’s another way to grow relationships.

“We’re using the farms as a space to connect with their neighbors and the broader community and to develop a deeper connection with the environment where their food comes from,” Ruane said. “Food is the vehicle but it’s so much more than food. It’s using those spaces as a vehicle for community change and bringing people together, so that inspires a lot of the work that we do.”

Melinda Moore is a freelance reporter for the Daily Southtown.