Ja’Don Banks tried growing vegetables outside his group home. He planted seeds repeatedly, and nothing came up. But this spring, with a little coaching, he’s growing hundreds of vegetable plants and flowers at a new greenhouse at Lambs Farm in Libertyville.
“Now I’ve got tomatoes in the ground and onions that I have to water,” he said. “I want to grow lettuce. I cut a potato and put five pieces in the ground, and they all came up. I’m a person that has enough patience to wait.”
Banks is part of a new horticultural program at Lambs Farm, a home for developmentally disabled adults.
The north suburban facility started in 1961 as a pet shop on State Street in downtown Chicago. It moved to its current 72-acre campus next to the Tri-State Tollway in 1965 and now houses about 140 residents, and serves another 110 visiting participants.
The nonprofit organization offers classes, recreation and social outings, but may be best known for its vocational programs. Participants still run a pet center, but also work at a farmyard with cows, goats and other animals, a restaurant and bakery, a country store, a thrift shop, and Lambs Industries, which offers production services, such as assembling, sorting or packaging products.
While the facility previously had a hoop house and garden center, its new 20-by-60 foot greenhouse offers a permanent, year-round facility with automated vents and fans that operate when it gets too hot, or that can be controlled remotely by a phone app. Its cottage style, faux stone and glass construction is designed to host events, and has an adjoining patio. The greenhouse opens to the public on Saturday.
Under the direction of manager Shelby Chellberg, who previously grew organic produce at Jacobson Family Farms in Antioch, participants have been planting seeds, watering and transplanting seedling vegetables and flowers into larger containers.
“He’s been hands in the dirt, and loving it,” Chellberg said of Banks. “He’s a plant nerd, just like me. He was like, ‘I love this job, thank you for giving me this job.’ It’s really fulfilling to see. It’s nice for anybody to do what they love for a living. It makes it not seem like work.”
Gardening has been shown to have therapeutic benefits. It improves memory, cognition and social abilities, and helps people work independently, problem solve, and follow directions, according to the American Horticultural Therapy Association.
One big change to nonprofit vocational programs this year is that Gov. JB Pritzker signed the Dignity in Pay Act. Over five years, the new law phases out subminimum wages that previously were allowed for people with disabilities, requiring them to be paid the same minimum wage as anyone else in Illinois — joining 18 other states.
The law also raised the monthly stipend for people in group homes to $100 a month, from $60 a month, and established a transition program for employers to get funding, training and support to increase work options while raising pay.
“Illinois is closing an era of an outdated two-tier wage system that let disabled workers make less money for their hard work,” Pritzker said when he signed the bill.
One drawback for not-for-profit agencies, though, is that they have to come up with more money to pay their workers, at a time when federal funding is being cut.
That’s a challenge for organizations such as Lambs Farm, which receives government funding and private donations, but operated at a $2 million deficit last year. But Lambs Farm made more than $1 million selling its products, and thanks to a significant bequest, cost-cutting and fundraising, officials expect to end the current fiscal year with a balanced budget.
Marisa Rademaker, who handles communications at the farm, said the greenhouse initiative fits with the organization’s mission to help participants learn new skills and potentially get jobs in local nurseries or elsewhere in horticulture.
Special needs employees at the farm generally work part time, and some don’t even know how much they’re making. But those working on a recent rainy day at the farm seemed to enjoy their work.
Michael Mullen lives with his family in Chicago, but comes to Lambs Farm to help run the carousel at the petting farm or work in the bakery. The 58-year-old was busy dipping crescent cookies in powdered sugar.
“I’m always covered with powder,” he said. “Kids’ll eat ’em, powder or no.”
Carrie Tennyson, director of business development at Lambs Farm, says her 25-year-old daughter Abbey Wright gets satisfaction working through the vocational program at the restaurant.
“She loves it,” Tennyson said. “My daughter is very social. She loves to greet people and serve people. She loves to bus tables and take orders. She’s a very service-oriented person who loves to do for others.”
Lambs Farm is part of a recent expansion trend among area agencies serving people with developmental disabilities.
Glenkirk bought a $6 million headquarters in Northbrook last year, using a combination of funds from the sale of its old building, a state grant, fundraising and borrowing.
In Chicago’s West Ridge neighborhood, Misericordia has been building 16 new intermediate care group homes to help shorten its long wait lists for residency.
Clearbrook opened a new mental health facility in Libertyville this year, and a new community integrated living arrangement (CILA) group home in Woodstock.
In the south and southwest suburbs, Envision Unlimited acquired 19 CILAs in 2022 to expand its offering of group homes in the Chicago area and central Illinois.
For those who work with people with special needs, the job is partly a calling. Chellberg enjoyed working in farming, but she found something that had been missing when she started at Lambs Farm this year.
“I was outside in nature, but I wasn’t getting that interaction my soul needed and helping people,” she said. “But this is so perfect. I always wanted to go into special needs. I’ve never felt so happy or fulfilled in my entire life.”
