BESSEMER WEEK 2: Community Gardens

by: Arnicea Fields, Antwan Jackson & Breana Walton

The second week of Trace we at Bessemer touched on several topics as a group. The topics were public speaking, oppression, and making ourselves more aware of what we eat and how our food effects our mood. We had a group discussion about what we thought oppression means to us. This discussion then led to doing activities on what oppression looks like.  For example, we did an improvisational activity focusing on how people who are light-skinned would be more likely to be treated better in different environments.

Nicole, our counselor, was very supportive and helpful with each Tracer while instructing the activity for public speaking. We did a short activity called Elevator Speeches.  Each Tracer had to write an introduction about ourselves if we had to approach someone we didn’t know.  The introduction had to be at least 30 sec and 2mins at the max.  We then listened and critique each other speeches with likes and dislikes about it to help in order to help out the individual.

We also started talking about our final project and what we wanted to do.  These discussions lead us to a field trip where we visited different places within the community. We visited Sarah Ward, who works at South Chicago Art Center. Ms. Ward was happy to talk to us about the work she does and how she started a community garden that is a nonprofit.  She invites any and everyone to contribute or take away from the garden. After leaving Ms. Ward we visited one last community garden. The gardener had various vegetables to choose from and different melons she was growing.

Lastly, to wrap up our community garden and food week we had a food demonstration with gardeners Emily and Francisca where we cooked and prepared many different types of foods and fruits seasoned with different sauces and spices.