Garden Club at Chicago-Read Mental Health Center

About

The Garden Club at Chicago-Read Mental Health Center empowers consumers through hands-on gardening experiences, fostering connections to nature while enhancing well-being. The Garden Club is an occupational therapy group at this hospital for adults with diagnoses of serious mental illness.

Categories Program Adults Educational / Vocational Mental Health Therapeutic

Program Details

The Garden Club, an occupational therapy group at the hospital, was created to provide our consumers with the opportunity to discover the joys of gardening while enhancing the beauty of the hospital courtyard. Consumers participate in every aspect of the garden, from building raised beds to planting and tending fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers. The consumers learn the cycle of producing their own food and enjoy tasting the fruits of their labor. After the produce is harvested, anything not consumed by group members is sold at an internal farmers’ market at affordable prices.

The Garden Club has expanded to include an annual flower garden that adds color and features a butterfly garden to support biodiversity in our ecosystem. Our consumers learn about the vital role they play in tending to gardens that nourish themselves, pollinators, and other animals, which in turn support our own well-being. In the years to come, we plan to add a sensory garden.

Contact Mary Ann Sornito, OTR/L maryann.sornito@illinois.gov 773-794-3758

Population Served
Our hospital serves a diverse population of adults with diagnoses of serious mental illness. The hospital comprises primarily long-term care units, including civil units, forensic units, and a unit serving the needs of individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing. All individuals we serve experience psychiatric conditions or have histories that require mental health services in an inpatient setting. Our goal is to provide comprehensive support and care to promote recovery and well-being for everyone.

Services Offered
Occupational therapy

Staff Composition
Co-led by two occupational therapists with an American Sign Language interpreter when needed/available

Cost to Participate
Participation is free to consumers receiving inpatient hospital services.

A butterfly garden is in full bloom with bright pink, red, and white native plants and wildflowers. The Garden Club has high hopes that this garden becomes a haven for pollinators for many years.

A small watermelon is growing and is surrounded by bright green foliage. The watermelons are a favorite amongst consumers and squirrels!

In the center of the garden, a white porcelain water feature flanked by a tall wooden pergola is surrounded by an herb garden. Raised vegetable beds are in the foreground and the butterfly garden with pink and white flowers is in the background.

A cluster of three bright orange sungold tomatoes await harvesting. The Garden Club grew and harvested four different varieties of tomatoes; sun gold, chocolate sprinkles, bumble bee, and lucky tiger. The best harvest was an impressive 26 lbs of tomatoes!

In this courtyard garden, a vibrant flower bed with red flowers and dark and light green foliage is in the foreground, with rows of vegetables growing in raised beds behind the flower bed. There are a total of 14 raised vegetable beds in this garden. In the background is a butterfly garden.

A black butterfly with red and white markings on its wings alights on a bright pink zinnia flower. The consumers express their pride in supporting an ecosystem that nurtures and sustains pollinators.

A grouping of bright yellow sunflowers in bloom stand tall at the center of the butterfly garden as a symbol of community, hope, and resilience.

Recent Case Studies

A sidewalk, path, and landscaped garden beds with flat-roofed, wood-sided buildings on either side.

Place

Power To Be Basecamp

This outdoor activity center serves as a base of operations for Power To Be, a nonprofit organization that creates access to nature for youth, families, and adults living with cognitive, physical, financial, and social barriers.

A group of youth play with a football while other children sit on the berm. Behind them, kids play on the climber dome. The school building in the background is painted with bright colors and artwork.

Place

Marian Anderson Neighborhood Academy (formerly Chester Arthur Schoolyard)

Formerly an asphalt-covered space that offered little to engage youth, the renovated schoolyard at the Marian Anderson Neighborhood Academy is now an inviting green space for students and community members that elevates hands-on learning, physical activity, and connection to the natural world.

Surrounded by an abundance of green, a participant reaches up to carefully inspect a particular branch of leaves during one of Tremont’s herpetology SANCP classes.

Program

Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont

Great Smoky Mountains Institute at Tremont is a nonprofit field school situated within Great Smoky Mountains National Park. It offers immersive, nature-based programs that enhance health and spark curiosity across all ages through profound engagement with the natural world.