On-Site Services
Cultivate Collective will focus on four core areas: Education & Community Learning, Health & Wellness, Environmental Sustainability, and Economic Development. Our six-acre learning and wellness hub will house our existing K-8 school in addition a Head Start early education facility, fresh foods store and café, teaching kitchen, community garden, walking trails and green spaces, three-acre urban farm, and health care center, enabling comprehensive programming and services that are fundamental to ending intergenerational poverty.
Our Community
The future home of Cultivate Collective was once the home of LeClaire Courts, a public housing complex of 600 two-story row houses in the Garfield Ridge neighborhood in Southwest Chicago.Â
This community was razed in 2011, and the land has remained vacant until construction of our project. We believe the Cultivate campus can serve as an early visual marker of reinvestment in the Cicero corridor — from the Stevenson highway to the Airport.
Holistic Wrap-Around Services
The Academy for Global Citizenship offers a relevant, engaging, and challenging educational program for all children. Every child is held accountable for achieving rigorous academic standards. Our inquiry-based learning curriculum provides an opportunity for learners to construct meaning through concept-driven units of study.Â
Students become environmentally and internationally minded by learning how their choices impact their community and ultimately the world. The Academy for Global Citizenship places an emphasis
Programming
AGC is implementing a home-based, birth-to-three program that will provide a pathway to the on-site, Head Start learning center for ages three and four. Rooted in their evidenced-based learning model, Early Education Essentials, the center will follow a nature-based, Dual Language, International Baccalaureate and Reggio-inspired approach to whole child development.
Since 2008 when it opened its doors, AGC has addressed the educational inequities in Chicago and across the U.S. by providing high quality, whole-child, public education, and innovative teacher training to under-resourced communities. AGC offers public education in Kindergarten through 8th grade and is part of the Chicago Public School System.
In partnership with Esperanza Health Centers, we will establish an on-site Federally Qualified Health Center that will provide access to care for the whole community. The Esperanza Health Center will collaborate with Cultivate Collective’s Neighborhood Marketplace to implement a Community Food Pharmacy program which will prescribe farm-fresh produce to individuals experiencing diet-related disease and illness.
The educational opportunities offered on site continue beyond the foundation provided to children. Extended learning programs are provided for both children and adults, including parenting seminars, healthy living workshops, cooking classes, gardening, job and social entrepreneurship training. Meaningful out-of-school activities, after school programs and tutoring are provided for students in addition to an entrepreneurship-focused summer camp and enrichment opportunities.
Offering fresh produce from our on-site urban farm, the Neighborhood Marketplace will serve as a gathering point for community members that will provide low-cost and no-cost produce.
The Green Business Institute’s vision is to be a catalyst for creating and expanding community wealth among the diverse Southwest Chicago community by empowering, building and sustaining equitable pathways to the tremendous business and career opportunities in the growing green economy.