I am Holly Gansz, a retired District 64 teacher. I garden and have been living in Park Ridge forever!  I have been eco-friendly and green for many years. We recycle, reuse, and repurpose.  I have used some large things, a wood burning stove, as garden art. But I would like to focus on three areas of my garden: 1) straw bale gardening, 2) dressing up my garden and 3) overhauling a garden.

Thank you for nominating me for the Changemaker recognition!
 
Straw Bales
This is a form of urban gardening. Bales can be placed anywhere, on patios, driveways, existing gardens, or grass. There is a science for treating the bales in the spring to prepare them for planting.  It is a process of feed and water to start decomposition.  Then you just place your seedling with a small scoop of soil and get ready to enjoy the harvest. Bales need very little water and then only to the top of the bale. (I watered twice in 2021). Our garden delivered eggplant, beans, kale, spinach, lettuce, red and green cabbage, green and wax beans, acorn butternut and mystery squash, tomatoes (finished my last tomato 12/7) rhubarb, zucchini, potatoes, onions and cukes. This is my second year using straw. I look around my neighborhood for homeowners with Halloween decoration using bales and invite them to let me recycle those straw bales.  I have been very successful at gathering them free. I am hoping to reuse 9 bales and added seven new already.
 
Dressing Up My Garden
Although I plan to have something in bloom every day, sometimes my garden is not colorful. So to dress it up, I hang colorful pretty dresses in the trees and bushes. I have use a theme or I am spontaneous and fanciful with my choice of dresses.  Maybe a wedding theme in ’22? I visit Goodwill, Salvation Army, or resale shops for deals. Several friends have contributed dresses. It’s just for fun and it’s interesting! Come by 909 S. Prospect (kitty corner from Roosevelt School) for a peek at the dresses next summer.
 
Overhauling A Garden
My large perennial area was looking shabby, weedy, and tired.  In the process I read an article in the Trib about a plant rescue in an abandoned lot in Chicago using plastic grocery bags. In the fall, I dug up each plant, with a shovel of dirt to protect the root structure, placed it in a plastic sack, doubled the bag, moved the bagged plants to my vegetable garden and buried the bags for the winter. I had about fifty bags and only lost two. I cleaned up the old garden, rototilled, fertilized, and planned before winter took hold.  Come spring, I dug up my sacks, replanted the flowers and enjoyed a well-earned colorful summer garden. I’m probably the only one to swipe bags from the Jewel recycle box! This was about 12 years ago, and I am thinking about a repeat. I did 2 other areas to complete restoring the beds.

Other Go Green ideas
2L pop bottle greenhouses                       
Reclaimed chair gardens                         
Rain barrel                                                 
Koi pond                                                    
Planted 12 trees
Mulching
Soaker hoses
Manufacturing dirt
Composting​

We had the idea of turning our yard into a community garden once our kids were grown and gone.  Chris had the bright idea of creating a rain garden in a low spot, using the dirt from digging out our patio, to create a berm.  And so, the Hodges Park Community Garden and Sustainable Yard began.
 
There are four 8 X 20 feet gardens, divided in half; so each gardener has a 8 X 10 plot.  Chris and our first gardeners built fences out of buckthorn and chicken wire to keep bunnies, dogs and little children out of the gardens; and Chris built cute gates for each garden.  The gardens are raised and filled with good soil and mushroom compost.
 
Our own large in-ground garden is along our back fence.  This year we’re going to plant “the three sisters” back there—corn in mounds, climbing beans around the corn and summer squash around the beans.  Indigenous Peoples knew that “the three sisters” nurture each other and humans with all they and we need to survive.  The corn gives us starch. The beans give us protein and the squashes give us nutrients to keep us healthy.
 
By catching rainwater in our 4 rain barrels, creating a rain garden and building sedge rows we do our best to keep all of the rain that falls on our property out of the sewer pipes. We use no commercial pesticides or herbicides and have a large open compost bin for food and yard waste.  Chris has a seed garden along our front hedge.  He grows native plants that were given to him by the Forest Preserve.  He collects the seeds from these plants each year.  They are sorted and sent to various Forest Preserve sites to restore the woods and prairies to their pre-settlement glory. 
 
One of the most important results of all of these activities, especially the gardens in our yard, is the community building that happens.  We have loved getting to know our neighbors better.  It’s delightful to see them teaching their children to garden, seeing them chewing on a green bean, tomato or cucumber fresh from the garden.  Of course, the main result of gardening is that we eat healthy, fresh food that we’ve grown ourselves. We hope that our small efforts to live sustainably and grow our own food will influence others to do the same. 
 
What started out as our own hobby has turned into a community effort that benefits more than just ourselves. We give and we receive. Thanks for recognizing us as “Changemakers”.   It’s an honor.  Nan and Chris    

GGPR: ​Do you see important connections with the role you play in our community and our future on this planet? 

Ms Corsello: As a technology elective teacher at Emerson Middle School, I teach over 400 6th, 7th, and 8th graders a year. In two of my classes, Multimedia Magic and Broadcasting, students are able to choose from a variety of short video project assignments. I’ve found great value in providing my students with an authentic audience by publishing their video projects on my teacher YouTube channel, https://youtube.com/MsCorsello. Many of the videos also make it onto our live video announcements, which airs on Fridays during homeroom. 

My goal is to engage and empower learners by providing student choice (see the learning menu and choice board linked above). One of the projects that students can choose to create is an environmental public service announcement. There are over 30 videos ranging from recycling misconceptions to deforestation in the Environmental PSA playlist. These videos serve as a tool to inform the community about environmental issues and persuade them to take action. 

My students and I have teamed up with Go Green Park Ridge to spread the word about various initiatives. In the spring 2019, Amy Bartucci visited my classroom to inform us about GGPR’s Straws Literally Upon Request Policy (#SLURP) initiative. Students worked in groups to create promotional videos to be shown during D64’s Go Green Week April 15-19th. In the fall, a broadcasting class news team filmed an interview with GGPR’s mother and daughter team, Catherine and Annie McDonough, in our digital media lab on the essential question, “What impact would a ban on plastic straws have on the ecosystem?”. We look forward to continuing our relationship with GGPR - when we work together we can have a greater impact! 

Go Green Park Ridge YouTube Videos

GGPR: Do you see important connections with the role you play in our community and our future on this planet?  Would you like others in our community to know more about your efforts? 

JEN: For years, I spent my time as a marketer in positions where I didn't truly feel like I was making a positive impact. About two years ago, I made the change and took a position with Verde Energy Efficiency Expert, where I believed in their mission to help our Chicagoland neighborhoods like Park Ridge, become energy efficient, and to help create more sustainable futures for the businesses and organizations that make our communities so great.  I feel much more content, and fulfilled waking up every day feeling like I'm doing a small part to help move the needle in reducing our cities dependence on coal as well as reducing our collective carbon footprint. Verde Energy Efficiency Experts is an L3C, which is a low-profit social enterprise venture with a goal of benefitting society, not maximizing revenue. While at Verde, one of my proudest accomplishments has been the creation of the Light the Way grant program, which awards organizations with the gift of energy efficiency, a gift that lowers their daily operational costs, so that they can, in turn, use that money to further their mission.  The entire Verde team works hard every day to streamline the process and make energy efficiency an easy and obvious decision for the private and public sector, and we're happy to do it.

As a Park Ridge Chamber of Commerce member, I'm heading a committee to help businesses become aware of the resources available to them to be more sustainable. So far, we've announced the Green Star Business Award program, which looks to recognize businesses in Park Ridge that have made outstanding efforts in sustainability practices. My hope is to grow awareness, but also to demonstrate to our businesses that sustainability not only helps our community, but it is an important part of them preparing for the future, as well as attracting new generations of patrons that want to support businesses making these sorts of impactful changes.

My husband, Dan and I alongside our three children, Charlie, Hazel and Theodore and dog, Phil are residents in Park Ridge and hope to be here for many years to come. Seeing our town make greener strides over the last year has been very exciting. I also recently joined the City of Park Ridge Sustainability Task Force.  We have an amazingly tight-knit community, and we can do great things when we come together.