Herbalism Events Serve As A Way to Heal Community

Urban Growers Collective is hosting a series of herbalism events at its South Chicago farm in August. Photo provided by Urban Growers Collective.
Urban Growers Collective is hosting a series of herbalism events at its South Chicago farm in August. Photo provided by Urban Growers Collective.

Herbalism Events Serve As A Way to Heal Community

By Tia Carol Jones

Urban Growers Collective will be hosting herbalism events in August. The herbalism workshops will take place at the South Chicago farm, which is located at 9001 S. Mackinaw.

Urban Growers Collective was co-founded in 2017 by Laurell Sims and Erika Allen. There are eight farms located in Altgeld Gardens, Bronzeville, Grant Park, Jackson Park, Englewood, Woodlawn, Roosevelt Square and South Chicago. Urban Growers Collective has a community herbalism apprenticeship, which lasts for three years, with the goal of participants understanding themselves and the herbs, while identifying and cultivating plants and learning the cultural roots of herbalism. The first year of the herbalism apprenticeship program is about self-healing. The second year is focused on family healing. The third year is community healing.

The first herbalism event, Singing with Plants, will take place at 1 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 16th. The event is in collaboration with the Honeycomb Project, a community-based organization that engages families to serve the community as a way to build strong connections. Local singer Stacy Rene Erenberg will be there for a day of community medicine making.

“I’m inviting people to bring their jars, to bring oils for making salves and infused oils, bringing vinegars and alcohol, to make tinctures and everyone gathering together, using the fresh plant material we have on the farm to make medicines,” said The Reverend Kim Crutcher, Herbalism Conductor with the Urban Growers Collective.

After the medicine making, there will be singing to celebrate the connection between humans and nature. A ticket for the workshop is $100; Urban Growers Collective is offering a reduced cost ticket of $25 in exchange for 3 workshare hours at the South Chicago farm. A group of apprentices will offer a community herbalism day from noon to 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 23rd.

The Participants will learn what can help people with wombs stay healthy from the start of their period to menopause. Following that, from 2:30p.m. to 4:30 p.m. there will be an herbal wisdom immersion. Visitors will go through the garden and learn about the plants, cultivated and wild herbs.

 Visitors will be able to smell, touch and taste, as well as take clippings of the herbs home with them. They will also learn how the herbs can be used to empower people’s lives. There will also be herbal programming that will take place in September and October.

Crutcher said that colonialism and industrialization has taken healing and healthcare out of people’s homes and put it into professions and areas where people need special training and knowledge to engage in it.

“Herbalism is a way to start the ability to care for yourself, to demystify your own body, to bring it back into the hands of individuals,” said Crutcher, who added that even the knowledge itself is healing.

Crutcher said her vision in her role as an herbalism conductor is to have a person on every block of the city knowledgeable in herbalism and able to identify herbs that could help heal people. When it comes to what Crutcher wants people to know about herbs, she wants people to know that herbalism is something that can happen in people’s homes, in their kitchens, and the plants have wisdom and coming into relationships with those plants is deeply healing.

She said herbalism is simple and people can access information. She said it can be delicious, and it can be fun, and also engage children. It is right at people’s fingertips and is not that far away.

Tuition for the community herbalism apprenticeship program is $2,000 for the year, scholarships are available. While the application for 2025 is closed, to apply for the 2026 program, visit www.urbangrowerscollective.org/herbalism-apprenticeship.

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