The main competition for Quilen and Hannah Blackwell, owners of Southside Blooms, a Chicago nonprofit that employs at-risk young adults and children, is not other flower shops. It is the eternal charm of the streets.
Hannah Blackwell said of the youth who previously participated in her program, “We heard that some of the kids in our after-school program joined gangs as they got older.” The Kansas native said of a former participant in the program: “I don’t know if Shawn is still alive.”In the predominantly black district of Englewood, South Side Chicago, is the flower shop Southside Blooms, which operates under the motto “Flowers that empower”. The Blackwells are a family of three who have lived in a food desert for ten years due to poverty, gang and gun violence, and a lack of job opportunities. Quilen Blackwell stated, “What you see in the media is true.”
In Chicago, one of the most dangerous cities in the country, there were 617 murders in 2023. That same year, 327 murders occurred in Los Angeles and 386 in New York. The Blackwells claim there have been fewer shootings in Englewood. Chicago police said in February that the city saw double-digit declines in shootings, homicides and gunshot victims compared to the same period in 2023.
However, the Blackwells’ son is still afraid and hides in their bed at night when he hears gunshots. In Englewood, danger reminds a pious couple of their ultimate needs. Wisconsin native Quilen Blackwell said, “I felt like the Lord was calling me downtown.”
In Englewood you may find the Chicago Eco House. The flower shop’s nonprofit umbrella organization teaches young people life and career skills through sustainable urban farming through farming, flower production and flower sales. Southside Blooms is a group of creative youth who design floral arrangements and centerpieces for local events such as weddings. People can work on the off-grid farms or in the workshop for as long as they want.
“It goes beyond just learning some basic skills for 10 weeks and saying, ‘Hey, good luck getting a job,'” Quilen Blackwell said. “In our situation, we are the careers and the jobs.”
The Blackwells want to convert abandoned buildings into successful flower farms that will eventually provide long-term jobs for local youth. This allows them to expand flower sales as an anchor industry. They claim it keeps them off the streets. “We want them to be proud of Englewood and ask themselves, ‘What can I do to make it better?’ instead of, ‘As soon as I can, I’m getting out of here,'” Hannah Blackwell said.
The Blackwells debuted at Southside Blooms in 2020 and Chicago Eco House a decade earlier. Since then, they have converted five abandoned properties in Chicago into flower farms powered by solar energy. The Chicago Eco House consists of two properties. The other three belong to the county and the city, but are allowed to be used by the Blackwells. The programs transform abandoned, trash-filled neighborhood areas into pesticide-free gardens that attract wildlife such as birds, bees and grasshoppers.
Everyone is happy
Southside Blooms’ professional development program involves approximately 35 people, whose members are typically between the ages of 16 and 25. As the organization grows, the two plan to open a second Southside Blooms flower shop on Chicago’s West Side. 16-year-old junior Armani Hopkins, who became a team leader two years after joining Southside Blooms, plans to stay on the team even after he enrolls at the University of Chicago to pursue a degree in microbiology.
Armani said, “Working at Southside Blooms has had a very positive impact on my life.” “It taught me that there is more to life, that black neighborhoods have beauty, and that everyone deserves respect and love from one another.”
Dionta White, 27, has been part of the Chicago Eco House farm team for two years. He says that since starting the course he has become better at managing his emotions and has learned more about how businesses work. He also understands the value of commitment.
“Working on the farm really made me realize that hard work pays off when you put it in,” White said. “You have to imagine that you are successful in everything you do and that you are paying attention all the time. Every step you take has a purpose. Englewood was a wealthy neighborhood before the Great Depression. In 1930, Chicago’s second largest business center was located here.
The city was a hub of the Great Migration, in which six million black people left the South and traveled across the country between 1910 and 1970. These included Quillen Blackwell’s maternal grandparents, who had moved from Arkansas to Milwaukee at the time to work as sharecroppers. The white families who struggled to live in Englewood during the redevelopment of Chicago’s neighborhoods in the 1930s still call it home, at least a few decades later.
In addition to redlining, racially restrictive covenants in place in Chicago, Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and elsewhere helped ensure the concentration of whites in certain districts. After a 1948 U.S. Supreme Court ruling rejecting the practice, more blacks moved to Englewood, leading to a decline in the area’s white population.
Redlining, white flight, and disinvestment during the Great Depression hurt small businesses in Englewood and caused property values to decline. During the crack cocaine pandemic of the 1980s, Chicago suffered significantly. According to Quilen Blackwell, job outsourcing over the next decade further eroded Englewood’s economic base.
According to White, there was no way to hang out in Englewood’s parks in the 2000s. According to his recollection, “they were constantly getting shot at.” The Illinois Policy Institute reports that 40 percent of the once-affluent neighborhood’s residents are impoverished and struggle with drug abuse, violence, poverty and prostitution.
Southside Blooms is in a safe zone
The Blackwells came together with the intention of improving downtown. In 2015, they found a cheap house in Englewood, had it repaired within six months, and have lived there ever since.
“Our first youth program was in our backyard; Everything you see today at both (Chicago) Eco House and Southside Blooms started in our house,” said Quilen Blackwell. Chicago Eco House grows the flowers and Southside Blooms serves as the fulfillment center, according to the couple.
“As part of our distribution approach, we generally distribute our services throughout the Chicagoland region and the Northwest Indiana suburbs. According to Hannah Blackwell, this is how we redistribute resources from well-resourced communities back into the community. Instead of operating like a normal flower shop that relies on customers coming and going, we make sure the door is secured. She said everyone inside was in a safe place.
The Blackwells began growing bulbs indoors in 2023, allowing them to grow flowers year-round and providing the farm team with continued work despite Chicago’s unproductive winters. Since last year, much of the winter flower growing – mostly tulips – has taken place in the basement of the Chicago Eco House. There, the Blackwells hope to grow about 30,000 flower bulbs a year.
“We haven’t been able to provide that stable, year-round employment opportunity, and I think that’s one of the reasons we lost some of those young men (who left the program),” Hannah Blackwell said. The two said that while the typical participant stayed at the Chicago Eco House for three months in 2018, the average stay increased to six months, with some participants staying for up to three years.
In 2019, the Chicago Field Office of the FBI awarded Quilen Blackwell the Director’s Community Leadership Award in recognition of her work using the Chicago Eco House to combat poverty and violence. The organization said that because of the nonprofit co-founder’s efforts, over thirty high school students now receive scholarships to help fund their studies in urban agriculture.