Planning an East Village garden is part of this year's curriculum at Near North Montessori School , 1434 W. Division. Students in this project will describe their assignment at Monday's East Village Association meeting. The students' statement follows; learn more at 7 p.m. in the Happy Village, 1059 N. Wolcott. We have volunteered to be part of our school’s gardening committee. We have been presented with the task of starting a school farm that will feed our school community and provide lessons for our classrooms about where our food comes from. The Rappes, former grandparents in our school community, have allowed us to use their vacant lots on Wood Street as a site for our school farm. Since we are going to be neighbors, we wanted to let you in on our plans. We plan on growing food organically all four seasons, making our own compost, holding classes outdoors, creating a sustainable irrigation system, and building natural, perennial ecosystems for students to play in. T...

By Marjorie Isaacson   Recycling in Chicago is easier than ever, if you're part of the minority of Chicago residents with the Blue Cart program. (The 1st Ward was an early adopter, but plans to expand Blue Cart recycling have been scaled back in the new city budget.) Blue Cart is a single-stream recycling system. Different recyclable materials — paper, cardboard, glass, metal, and some plastics — all can be put in the cart together. This may sound like the notorious Blue Bag program, but it's not. Instead of being co-mingled and contaminated with garbage, Blue Carts are collected with a separate truck and processed at a materials recovery and recycling facility (MRRF, pronounced "merf"). This type of high-tech mechanization has become the standard, and is the most economical way to process what are in reality valuable raw materials. Like many environmentally minded people, I find recycling a very satisfying activity. It changes taking out the trash into a feel-good ...

President's Message by John Scheer  The East Village has been very busy and the East Village Association has been right there with all that's happening. You can be part of it too, by joining the November EVA membership meeting. It's scheduled for Monday, Nov. 2 at the Happy Village, 1059 N. Wolcott. Ald. Manny Flores (1st Ward) is scheduled to speak and will be a great source of information on current events and your community interests. There was beautiful weather and a great turnout for the Renegade Art Fair. Some of the best crafts were on Division Street, with creative solutions to repurpose selected products. If you have interest in the future use of a major street, come to the November EVA meeting to share your thoughts with Ald. Flores. Curbs are being dug up and replaced along Damen Avenue. This is the current fix when water consistently pools above the drains. Other street work is appearing on Division, Augusta and several other streets. If you have thoughts about ...

Minutes for October 5, 2009 Membership Meeting Submitted by Dana Palmer Meeting Commenced at 7:07 p.m. Presentation by Allison Havens (pictured at right) with The Greenheart Shop, located at 1911 W. Division St. According to Ms. Havens, The Greenheart Shop is a non-profit organization that offers fair-trade and eco-friendly items for purchase. They are also part of Chicago Fair Trade and were started by the Center for Cultural Interchange . Secretary Report: Dana Palmer drafted a letter to request those past members whose membership status has lapsed to renew. Letter will be presented to board at next meeting for approval. Planning, Preservation and Development: Scott Rappe mentioned that there are plans to save most of the St. Boniface building to use for senior housing. Scott Rappe brought up to the group that a Community Sustainable Agriculture partnership called Homegrown Wisconsin is interested in having a drop site in the East Village neighborhood if they can get 25 people t...

The fair-trade clothing, food, jewelry, accessories and children’s items at Greenheart Shop , 1911 W. Division, have roots on the Mediterranean island of Ibiza, Spain. There the nonprofit Greenheart organization has been involved in ecology, student-exchange, and music projects affiliated with Spain’s Fundación por el Futuro . Chicago’s Greenheart Store grew from ecotourism and fair-trade partnerships with the Spanish group. The Greenheart store sells fair-trade goods, for which wholesalers monitor work conditions and give producers technical assistance. Its representatives will tell more about the organization and its history at Monday’s meeting of the East Village Association. The presentation starts at 7 p.m. in the Happy Village tavern, 1959 N. Wolcott. Greenheart relocated this summer to the former Porte Rouge space from a smaller storefront at 746 N. LaSalle, now the group’s travel agency . At last month’s Renegade Craft Fair , the shop sold houseplants grown at the Pacifi...