Loud Grade Produce Squad

Loud Grade Produce Squad is a 501 (c)(3) non profit operating out of Chicago. We plan, faciliate, create, manage, and administer various urban agricultural activities all with the underlying intention of spreading the good word of farming. Our projects can be as large as creating and maintaining urban farms on unused lands and as small as planning and facilitating short term gardening projects with parterning organizations. Check out some of the projects that we have going on-

• Weiss Hospital Rooftop Farm- A 20,000+ square foot rooftop farm on the top of Weiss Hospital's Parking Garage in the middle of Uptown. Complete with rain collection system, chicken coop, apiary, compost project, and tons of growing space. This project provides produce for a table at Weiss' weekly farmers market, private sales in the neighborhood, and deliveries to Weiss' cafeteria. This project is entering its' third year and was a 2011 Governor's Home Town Award winner. We are always expanding the rooftop, adding new growing space and new projects! We are always on the hunt for people hungry to get their hands dirty, for real.

• Greenhouse at Institute for Cultural Affairs (ICA)- Also in Uptown, this is our newest site and is full of potential. The ICA is an enormous building full of community centers and social programs and serves many residents in the community. The ICA brought LGPS on to design and implement an indoor growing area in their newly constructed community kitchen. Our design profits from the large, south-facing windows and we hope to be able to grow greens and herbs year round with little to no secondary lighting source.

• Biodiesel Lab- LGPS runs its' vehicles on 100% Chicago/LGPS made biodiesel. That's right, we collect waste oil from the Weiss Hospital Cafeteria and, in our lab, process it to be used as a high performing diesel fuel. Running our vehicles on biodiesel means we are 1- cutting our emissions by 85%, 2- putting a waste product to a positive use 3- using local resources instead of harmful foreign ones.

• LGPS After-School Programming- Loud Grade has administered the creation of more than five new urban gardening plots in conjunction with Chicago Public Schools through after-school programs. We are currently developing a plot of land by Pulaski and Adams in conjunction with students from Delano school.