Southside Blooms employs Chicago's at risk youth while supporting sustainability

CHICAGO - Spring flowers are sprouting in Englewood in the dead of winter.

Southside Blooms employs at-risk youth from the neighborhood to plant, tend, grow, and harvest flowers all summer. They also arrange and sell the flowers at a floral shop at 6250 S. Morgan St. in the cooler months. 

The program has been so successful that they moved out of a household basement to the corner space and expanded their operations.

Quilen Blackwell, founder of Southside Blooms, started the tulip growing room because tulips can be manipulated to bloom early, which gives the business a winter growing season.

They are growing a dozen varieties of tulips, about 1500 flowers every week. The flowers will be ready for Valentine’s Day, all the way through Mother’s Day. 

"Business is done locally, employed locally, supporting environmental flowers and sustainability initiatives. Who would have thought that you could put so much into a flower shop and flowers could have so much power?" Blackwell said.

All the flowers are grown in Englewood.

"What you’re seeing is the work of our young people. They’re the ones that are tending to the flowers, they’re tending to the farms, they’re in the flower shop making the arrangements. So you know, when you look at these arrangements, this is really what they have to offer to the entire city. This is a great way for them to show the people in Chicago that they have something valuable to contribute. When you support us, we’re supporting them and helping them to feel like valuable members of our society," Blackwell said.

Blackwell has been contacted by people in other cities that want to involve their young people in a program like his.

Southside Blooms can design a small bouquet or a large, high-end wedding. They offer subscriptions on their website: Southsideblooms.com.