About

Photo Credit: Adam Peoples

About our organization:

Berwyn Roots- A Community Garden Movement is a group of volunteers who dedicate their time and efforts to build up our local community through gardening.

We currently maintain three active garden spaces here in Berwyn, IL. Serenity Park (established 2018) , Proksa Park Children's Garden (established 2019) and now the Ebenezer Neighborhood Garden (established 2024).

Our mission is to get people of all ages and abilities outdoors. We focus on urban gardening techniques, many of which can be transferred to your home gardens. We have made it our purpose to both make gardening more accessible at home and to provide healthy fresh grown produce and herbs for those in need. We host a variety of workshops and swaps and now book club throughout the year to bring people together and talk gardening.

Our History:

2018 started with a five year old Isabella asking "Why does Berwyn have no butterflies?" After a bit of research, we realized there was a lack of pollinator friendly gardens in our neighborhood.

We reached out to the Berwyn Park District to see if they would allow us to grow a pollinator garden on their property. The garden took shape quickly through the generous donations from garden enthusiasts of plants and bricks. The park district donated some unused stepping stones they had in storage and Sequin Garden Center donated a whole cart of perennial plants. We named ourselves Serenity Park Community Garden (Established May 2018).

April of 2019 we added volunteers and took on revamping the Children's Garden in Proksa Park.

With the help of the community, razed the weeds and invasives, and salvaged some plants that survived from the original gardens. We built a mud kitchen, a nature play space and established a few pollinator and veggie beds. We renamed our group Serenity Park and Community Gardens.

Through donations the Park District were able to acquire from the BDC, the Park District itself, Kiwanis and Macneal Hospital, raised beds were installed over the original beds to reduce the occurence of the weeds coming back.

2020 halted much of our garden progress due to the Covid Outbreak and Shelter in Place Order.

Once the shelter in place was lifted, we came back stronger than ever, and with a desire to build up our community.

We took on an extra garden space at Herritage Middle School to produce food to take to the food pantry.

We created committees to help with future planning and grant applications. We started hosting seed starting workshops and other free events

In December 2023, our first garden, Serenity Park Community Garden was threatened to be razed to put in a temporary parking lot. With the help of many community members, the garden was spared and we decided to take that momentum and have the community help rebrand our group's name. From community suggestions and voting,

Berwyn Roots- A Community Garden Movement was born in March 2023.

2024 started with the completion of our fruit orchard grant and continuing with workshops and events to get our community more involved in gardening.

We have started partnering with different groups, trying to make our garden community grow stronger. The Morton West Ecology Club has spent a few visits now in our natives gardens getting their hands dirty and seeing their seedlings they grew get placed into local gardens.

2024 also ended with the creation of the Ebenezer Neighborhood Garden located in the Ebenezer CRC Berwyn Church Parking lot next to their Community Fridge.

The whole garden came together quickly through community donation and the support of Kay at the Ebenezer Community Foundation.

Our 2023-24 Growing Season

Built a fruit orchard

In our 2023- 2024 growing season, our volunteers planted over 40 fruiting trees and shrubs as part of a grant from ChangeX.org and Nickelodeon. Our Junior leaders Isabella, Shawn and Dylan were highlighted at the Nickelodeon Kid's Choice Awards (2024) for their volunteer efforts! This photo is from one of our planning meetings

Built a neighborhood garden

Working with Kay and the Ebenezer Community Foundation, our volunteers were able to raise over $600 and built the garden in the parking lot of the Ebenezer CRC Church. This garden will help provide fresh veggies and herbs for the Community Fridge on site.

Children garden improvements

We created a yellow brick road path through part of our fruit orchard thanks to the generous donations of pavers and bricks from community members. Our children's garden improvements will continue into 2025

Who we are

Our volunteers are all ages and come from a variety of different backgrounds in gardening. We take volunteers with any skill level (or lack of) and share what we have learned along the way, making us all better gardeners as we work together. See some of our volunteers at work below!