Community Service: Part of the food we grow gets donated to the local food pantry so each individual not only gains the valuable skills to grow, but also receives a sense of gratitude and service to others.
Establishing School Gardens: School gardens should be an important part of any school curriculum. Cob Connection works with high schools to develop an integrated curriculum involving science, social studies, economics and creative writing just to name a few subjects. The curriculum involves training on local democracy, conflict resolution, nonviolent communication, designing sustainable communities, growing and building.
Natural Building: Students learn how to build gazebos, ovens, tables, benches and sheds using natural building techniques such as straw bale construction, rammed earth, and cob, a building material consisting of clay, sand, and straw.
Our Newest Project! CommuniTree
We are happy to introduce our newest project: CommuniTree: An Urban Agroforestry demonstration project in Chicago’s Humboldt Park. The aim of this project is simple: Organic Food + Trees + People = Healthier Communities. Agroforestry is an integrative, sustainable land use system which combines the growing of trees and food to optimize production, bio-diversity and profitability. CommuniTree will employ and train ex-offenders in the techniques of urban agriculture and urban forestry. They will learn to grow food for the community of Chicago, they will learn how to grow and take care of trees contributing to a healthy global environment, and they will gain skills that will contribute to their own well being and personal development. The participants will receive extensive training and direct work experience by learning how to care for and maintain fruit and nut trees, how to plant trees, how to market trees and how to sell trees.
Will Work for Food Program – Families that Grow Together, Grow Together
Shaping community values begins with families and families that grow together, grow together. Cob Connection is committed to serving low-income communities who lack specific infrastructure capacities in order to thrive. By providing job training in urban agriculture and natural building construction to both teens and families we address the basic elements of building a thriving community: housing, food and families and economics.
This summer, in partnership with the Logan Square YMCA, and our newest partners, Hispanic Housing Development Corporation and the Association House of Chicago, Cob Connection continued to implement a microenterprise project called ‘Will Work For Food’ growing food on 12 city lots in the Logan Square/ Humboldt Park area. This was the 2nd year of an eight-month job-training program working with teens and their families who are receiving public subsidies. The mission of the project is to transition families from welfare to self-sufficiency through urban agribusiness. This was the second year of a three-year pilot project, each consecutive year addressing the deeper barriers to transitioning from welfare to the workforce. Participants are given agriculture and farming skills, job readiness training, life skills, and business proposal writing. Another important aspect to this project is that the participants also be develop the relationships with the market to apply their skills as small business entrepreneurs. When the participants graduate, they are eligible to receive their own plot of land as transitional land stewards where they can begin their own farming business.
Chad A. Bliss
Executive Director/ Founder
Cob Connection
(773) 317-2622
