In a way, the seeds of CEGA were planted in 2011. In that year, the Green on McLean community garden, located in a gang-ridden neighborhood on a vacant lot reclaimed from decades of trash and violence, entered the Mayor’s Landscaping Awards. The small garden, which radio host Mike Nowak had helped to create, won third prize for community gardens in their area of the city. The kids who had worked on the garden were so proud that they passed around the award, a small plaque, all winter.
That was the last year of the Mayor’s Landscaping Awards. They were canceled, and Chicago lost an invaluable program, which for more than fifty years had recognized and encouraged the city’s gardeners. A few years later, Nowak, who live-streams an environment and gardening show (The Mike Nowak Show with Peggy Malecki), decided it was time to recreate the program. His co-host, the publisher of Natural Awakenings Chicago magazine, agreed, and the two of them went to some of their urban gardening friends: Christine Nye, horticulture manager at the Shedd Aquarium; Ron Wolford, extension educator in horticulture at University of Illinois Extension: Cook County; and Julie Samuels, co-founder of the Chicago Community Gardeners Association (CCGA).
This group of gardening movers and shakers formed a committee to start giving out awards themselves. Ron and his team recruited Master Gardeners from Extension to do the judging, Mike and Peggy took charge of the publicity and graphics and helped organize the ceremony, Julie got the word out through CCGA, and Christine worked with the Forest Preserve District of Cook County to get the metal award signs printed and bolted to poles. Extension paid for the venue for the ceremony, the auditorium at the Chicago Cultural Center. And all of these people and groups did the other day-to-day work necessary to create what they called the Chicago Excellence in Gardening Awards (CEGA).
Even in the first year—and certainly since then—other groups concerned with our community environment stepped up to help get the word out. At the first awards ceremony, former commissioner of the environment for the city of Chicago Suzanne Malec-McKenna gave a brief but inspiring keynote address, and then the award winners came to the front of auditorium to receive their awards as Mike read descriptions of their accomplishments and images of their gardens flashed behind him. The room was filled with the joy and pride of gardeners who ranged from pre-school kids to at least one who remembered working in a World War II victory garden. Everyone involved knew that something important had begun.
In the first two years, CEGA recognized more than 100 gardens from all over Chicago for making their neighborhoods more beautiful and sustainable. As the 2019 growing season slowly unfolded, CEGA once again invited gardens of all shapes and sizes, including residential, community, school, church, business and urban farms to enter its free and citywide competition. For a time, there was concern that the wet, chilly spring would discourage gardeners from entering, but CEGA launched a social media campaign, sent out email blasts and received remarkable support from the press. Metropolitan Water Reclamation District (MWRD) commissioner Kim Du Buclet arranged for the MWRD to donate 5 rain barrels for a raffle that every entrant was eligible for. And new Chicago garden center City Grange gave each entrant a $15 gift certificate. In the end there were almost as many entries in 2019 as in the first two years combined, and this time they came from 76 neighborhoods in 43 of the city’s 50 wards.
And then came 2020 and the COVID pandemic. Safety came first, and CEGA decided not to send judges out to gardens in person. Instead, we launched the CEGA 60-Second Garden Video Challenge. For two years, our judges stayed home, and gardeners submitted 60-second videos that we posted on YouTube. The winners were decided by popular vote, and more than 19,000 people viewed the videos.
In 2022, we went back to our original awards program and ended the year with a wonderful celebration with 200 joyful gardeners at Wild Blossom Meadery & Winery on Chicago’s South Side.