Planting seeds for Green Town Project to 'regreen' Waukegan

Can Waukegan be transformed from rustbelt brown to eco-friendly green, with its residents finding common ground and unity in the process?

Waukegan native Newton Finn thinks so, and is willing to put his law career on hold for several years to spearhead The Green Town Project.

"I'd like to spend five years helping to regreen this city," Finn said. "And the idea is not simply to regreen the city, but to unify the city."

The seeds of the project are growing in a small demonstration community garden on South Genesee Street, but the vision has a multi-million budget and a city-wide scope.

The Green Town Project is a public-private partnership between the Taskforce on Waukegan Neighborhoods, the city, The University of Illinois Extension and a whole lot of angels donating in-kind services and materials.

The project includes a daunting list of goals and benchmarks, but the vision is easy to see in the demonstration garden, where residents from significantly different ethnic, political and economic backgrounds get their hands dirty together.

"You see moms and kids walking by, looking at the garden, and the next thing you know, they're holding shovels," said County Board member Robert Sabonjian, who is providing publicity and design work to the project.

"This is something that people in the community have to get behind, and truthfully, I'm starting to see it," Sabonjian said.

Project goals include the establishment of an urban farm and market, restoration and beautification of the city's Waukegan River ravines system, the creation of several community gardens in vacant lots along major corridors and the development of a wildflower prairie along ComEd power line rights-of-way.

Long-term goals include a community honey production facility, greenhouse farms, roof gardens, wind-power and thermal energy projects and construction of a botanical garden and a Ray Bradbury Green Technology Center.

For the project to work, Finn said the group needs to raise an estimated $2.7 million in funds to match a similar amount raised in in-kind services. Finn said federal, state and business funding are all anticipated sources of revenue. Creation of the demonstration garden on Genesee was one of the requirements needed to pave the way for federal funding.

Right now the project is running in-kind services provided by the city, the University of Illinois Extension and individual and business volunteer efforts.

If funding goals are reached, however. the project would have three full-time employees -- Finn as executive director, Cheryl Pytlarz, urban food production ambassador for the Extension and Larry Sell, a bilingual teacher at Round Lake High School with extensive experience as an agricultural ambassador in Central America.

Finn said Sell brings both his agricultural knowledge and his ability to serve as an outreach person for the Hispanic community.

The project can help revitalize the city on several levels, Finn said. From a beautification perspective, unsightly vacant lots would become community gardens, and the city's ravines would return to their role as a natural asset to the community instead of a dumping ground.

Local schools would be involved, with each having a garden, Finn said, and the location of community gardens throughout the city would provide a sense of ownership and community among neighbors and help heal divisions, he said.

The group is already receiving help from many quarters, including the Waukegan Park District, Waukegan Township and the Waukegan Garden Club.

"At this point in time with the tensions in Waukegan, this is a marvelous way to get people working together," Finn said. "We want this effort to be city-wide. Overall, we think this would do much in changing Waukegan's largely undeserved negative image."