Flowers and futures bloom in Chicago as sustainability-focused nonprofit helps keep youth away from guns and gangs

The agency pointed out that over 30 high schoolers had received stipends to support their urban agricultural studies thanks to the non-profit co-founder’s efforts.

By Ashley R. Williams
CNN
Mar 31, 2024

Excerpt:

For Southside Blooms owners Quilen and Hannah Blackwell, who run the Chicago floral nonprofit staffed by at-risk youth and young adults, their biggest competition isn’t other flower shops.

It’s the constant draw of the streets.

“(There were) kids that were in our after-school program that we heard joined a gang when they got older,” said Hannah Blackwell of the young participants once involved in their program.

“I don’t know if Shawn is still alive,” the Kansas native said, referring to a former program participant.

The Southside Blooms floral shop – with its slogan of “flowers that empower” – rests in South Side Chicago’s majority Black-populated Englewood community. The impoverished food desert plagued by vacant lots, few job opportunities and gang and gun violence is where the Blackwells, parents to three children, have lived for a decade.

“There’s truth to what you see in the media,” said Quilen Blackwell said.

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