Impact Spotlight

5 solar-powered flower farms, revitalizing 10 acres of vacant land

15 year-round jobs, and agriculture education for 300 youth a year.

Establishing floristry as an anchor industry on Chicago's South Side.

About

Southside Blooms uses sustainability to alleviate poverty. Based in Englewood, one of south Chicago’s most under-resourced communities, Southside Blooms, also known as Chicago Eco House, grows flowers across 10 acres of previously vacant land, employing young people to learn to grow and sell their product along the way. Created by and for Englewood residents, Chicago Eco House is dedicated to employing the community, providing sustainability education, and expanding the tent of environmentalism to include urban Black communities, one flower at a time.

According to President and Founder Quilen Blackwell, “The southside of Chicago (and communities like it) are more than guns, drugs, and violence. The future of the environmental movement is based here because it is in our communities that the world will see how environmental stewardship combined with innovative bottom-up economic development can unleash holistic prosperity for everyone.”

“This represents an opportunity to usher in a new future for urban Black America. By utilizing an innovative approach to community development and environmental sustainability, we are getting kids off the violent streets and onto our solar-powered flower farms— all while establishing flowers as the new economic base of the Black community. People in our communities now equate solar with saving lives.”

— Quilen Blackwell, President and Co-Founder of Chicago Eco House and Southside Blooms

HF Partnership

With support from Sunrun, Honnold Foundation has partnered with Chicago Ecohouse to bring solar energy to their headquarters in Englewood, Illinois, ensuring that their headquarters is just as sustainable as their 10 acres of flower farms.

Cost savings will allow Chicago Ecohouse to double their current programs, including a K-8 after-school program that exposes kids to urban agriculture, a 10-week workforce development program for young people ages 16-24, and employment opportunities at an in-house flower shop, Southside Blooms.