ENGLEWOOD -- A community-driven library that honors local elders while upholding an ancestral tradition is open in Englewood, and everyone is welcome to share in the celebration.
The Community Seed Library debuted this month in the Go Green Griot Plaza, 1201 W. 63rd St. Much like Little Free Libraries, neighbors can take free flower and vegetable seeds. Each package will have a QR code that links to interviews featuring Englewood elders.
The Go Green Griot Plaza, which opened in June, transformed vacant land near the Go Green Community Fresh Market into a hub that preserves and promotes Englewood's rich heritage. Inner-City Muslim Action Network, or IMAN, led the South Side project.
The Community Seed Library will further the plaza's purpose by combining historical retellings with seed sharing -- a traditional practice where people saved, shared and harvested seeds, said Binta Diallo, associate director of arts and culture at IMAN.
The plaza library also has free books available for families, Diallo said.
IMAN partnered with local limited worker cooperative Cooperation Racine, which led the initiative to bring the seed library to the Englewood plaza.
The seed library is the "soft launch and kickoff" of Harvest Seasoning, a story-banking and seed-saving project Cooperation Racine will make available at its development in West Englewood, said Saleem Hue Penny.
The mixed-use building at 1201 W. 71st St. will feature a community gallery, incubator kitchen, darkroom, multimedia studios, live-work apartments and spaces for pop-up workshops. An outdoor garden will house Harvest Seasoning.
Cooperation Racine will host a community celebration in October to welcome neighbors to the development and honor local elders, Hue Penny said.
"Part of the vision for the plaza and the corridor is to continue to build the type of landscape and world we want to see," Diallo said. "We want to reimagine the world as it could be. The seed library is one way of continuing that work."
Intentional community engagement was at the core of Cooperation Racine's work when co-creating the community seed library, Hue Penny said.
The cooperative met older people in existing spaces, such as IMAN luncheons, to inform them about the project. They used the term "elder" instead of "senior" to invoke language that encourages respect.
Along the way, they met Barbara Miller, a South Side native and long-time member of IMAN's Beloved Community Ceramics Studio.
Hue Penny captured Miller's story through a series of conversations on her porch, he said. He met with Essell Booker, another Englewood elder, in his community garden.
Both conversations "moved at the speed of trust," Hue Penny said. Every elder featured in Harvest Seasoning was compensated for their time and will receive recordings of their conversations, Hue Penny said.
"This project is intentionally creating intergenerational connections and cementing the joy that seniors would like to offer to the world," Binta said. "Our elders are a population that are often overlooked, so having these conversations opens moments for youth and elders to pour into each other."
Seed sharing is also pivotal to IMAN and Cooperation Racine's community-building initiative, Hue Penny said.
Seed sharing dates back to the "dawn of agriculture," according to the Sustainable Economies Law Center. The practice was once "one of the most important roles you could have in your community," Hue Penny said.
Environmental advocates have long called for a decline in the buying and selling of seeds by companies and a return to traditional customs like seed sharing to boost sustainable community food systems.
Cooperation Racine sources seeds from Black and Indigenous growers like Sistah Seeds and Truelove Seeds, and local sharers, like the Chicago Tool Library, Hue Penny said.
One seed available at the Community Seed Library is the Chicago callaloo, a viridescent leaf with pink undertones that recurrently grew around Cooperation Racine's 71st Street and Racine project, Hue Penny said.
The resiliency of the plant will now be shared with the community, Hue Penny said.
The plaza's Community Seed Library "set the tone and created the energy" for what neighbors can expect at Cooperation Racine's celebration on 71st and Racine next month, Hue Penny said.
"We want elders to feel proud," Hue Penny said. "We're excited for what's going to be on 71st and Racine and to start the healing of what we promised."