Charrette at CPS

Today half of our group members went to a public junior high in Chicago called Hendricks. It's located directly across the street from Eden Place.

We broke the kids up into groups and gave each member a different interior 3D drawing of the Nature Studio. We asked them to come up with ideas for what they'd like to see on the inside. Most of the kids have been to Eden Place before and a few have taken their summer education programs so they're familiar with what Eden Place needs. We're sorting through a bunch of their drawings now but once we're done we'll post a few of them up here.

We looked up Hendricks on CPS's website before we visited to get a feel for the place. Almost 99% of the children at Hendricks are low-income. Three and a half miles north of the school is the Loop and the Magnificent Mile. The dichotomy between Fuller Park and just a few miles north is truly astonishing.

Are most Chicagoans even aware of this? The more we learn about Fuller Park and Eden Place the more we realize that if any single neighborhood or group deserves a helping hand in Chicago it's right here.