Winter Tree Identification Workshop

Sustain DuPage kicks off its 2025 series of workshops on Sunday, February 23rd by taking a winter walk with Pat Armstrong in Naperville. This educational walk will teach you how to identify key species of local trees in winter, along with their uses as food and medicine.  Click here to learn more and purchase tickets at our Eventbrite Page.   

Meet Seed Cache at Local Seed Swaps!

Finally time for serious local seed shopping; or as we prefer to call it, seed swapping! Even if you have everything you plan to grow this year, it's fun to find new varieties and share knowledge with other gardeners in our community.   

Please make sure that any seeds you bring to swap meet the following requirements: Open Pollinated or Heirloom seeds.   

Sustain DuPage will be sharing seed, including the 2025 One Seed, One Community selection, Norfolk Spinach, at the following seed swaps:  

Feb 1, 12-3 PM, Morton Arboretum Seed Swap, Lisle. Get your ticket here.  

Feb 19, 6:30-8 PM, Lombard Garden Club Seed Swap, Helen Plum Library, Lombard. Free, public welcome. 

Feb 22, 1-3 PM, Seed Swap with Sustain DuPage at Wheaton Public Library, FREE, details here.  

Any questions about seed swaps, email Betty here  OR email Lisa here.   

 

 

For more information about this exciting project, we present these additional details by our friend, District 4 Forest Preserve Commissioner and local environmental champion, Jeff Gahris:

I am a member of the board of the McKee House Preservation Group, a not for profit working to create a Native American Cultural and Environmental Center in the Churchill Woods Forest Preserve in Glen Ellyn. With help from our community, we will restore the empty McKee House at Churchill Woods so that the Midwest SOARRING Foundation, an inter-tribal Native American cultural not-for-profit, can operate cultural and environmental programming at the site.

You are welcomed to attend our public meeting at the Glen Ellyn History Center on February 22nd at 2 PM.

Why is this important? The McKee House sits on what was DuPage County's largest Potawatomi village in 260 acres of a pristine mix of prairie, savanna, and woodland. What could be more appropriate, or more profound, than a permanent native American presence on a site where indigenous people may have been present for many generations? A sense of place provides a more profound experience for visitors who come to enjoy the natural beauty of Churchill Woods and to appreciate how earlier residents lived in harmony with nature.

You can help make this happen! Tax-deductible donations to the McKee House Preservation Group may be made at https://fundthecenter.org. 

 

Protectors 

With the blessing of the snow in early January, our volunteers were able to broadcast almost 20 native species of seeds in the rewilding areas. We also enjoyed cookies, hyssop & lemon verbena tea, and of course a fire!

 

If this looks like your idea of fun, join our weekly outdoors restoration workday. We'll be doing various land stewardship tasks on the grounds of the Theosophical Society starting at 10 a.m. Saturday mornings through February. This workday will be canceled if the temperature is in the 20s or below. For more details, email our general mailbox here.     

 

 

Turners

This January, several folks met to discuss Birding to Change the World by Trish O'Kane.  We appreciated how this book touched on so many things and evoked our own personal stories about our experiences with nature, and how we advocate for it.

Some of our favorite birds were the Bobwhite Quail, the Chickadee, the Scissortail Flycatcher, and the Koel of India. We marvel at their songs, and ways of surviving and caring for each other. Our appreciation of them may be part of why we advocate for nature- in our outdoor lighting and landscaping plant choices, the impact of landscaping and mosquito control chemicals on the insect that feed many birds. We strive to create good relationships with insects as well, since they are a crucial chain in the web of life.

We learned strategies for living and advocacy from the people in this book and our feathered friends. Find Your Flock and work together! Involve kids to best advocate for so much that we care about. Knowing you might not win every time, keep doing what you can to contribute, help, live and thrive. Time in nature helps with this; it feeds our spirits and build empathy and observation. Last but not least, food of course can help build communities and movements!

Much of our reflections touched on how the work we are doing at Sustain DuPage, and the other nature-supporting groups in our area, help us stay hopeful, focused and resilient. We are looking forward to the coming growing season to keep adding to this community, and drawing strength and hope (and yes, more food!) from it. Thank you all for supporting this work as you are able!

 

Gardeners

It's that time of year again! If you'd like to be more involved in the Sustain DuPage Garden this year, here's your chance. We'll be meeting in-person over the next several weeks to go over planning details for our communal garden. Topics covered will include evaluating last year's performance and how we can improve, which large projects we'll be focusing on for 2025, new innovations for the garden, assigning tasks and leadership roles, planning garden beds, and choosing plant varieties. We'll also hear from other Sustain DuPage Organizers whose projects overlap with our garden space about special opportunities and new ways to interact in the garden! 

We will meet at the Helen Plum library in Lombard, in a classroom limited to 16 people, so please RSVP here only if you are planning on attending. We may be able to add a live Zoom link as well for people who would like to join but aren't able to attend in person. If you can't attend but are also in our WhatsApp group, we will be posting meeting notes so everyone can follow along and contribute their own comments.

 

Food Security Squad

Last year our community donated 90 tomato seedlings to the People’s Resource Center in Wheaton, for individuals and families who use the food pantry services. They were so excited about this community outreach, that PRC has asked if we would do it again.

 

There are over 600 families/individuals that use the food pantry in Wheaton on a weekly basis.  It would be great to double or triple our seedling donation from 2024. Just like last year, we will donate any tomato seedlings that remain after the SD seedling swap to be held on May 17th.

We are looking for volunteers to grow out additional seedlings for this project at home. FSS will provide tomato seeds suited to grow in containers or smaller spaces (porch or balcony). All seedlings would need to be ready to donate to PRC by mid-May, as the donation to PRC will occur on Monday, May 19th. . 

Please let me know if you would like to grow out tomatoes for this event by sending an email to Diane here or our general email here.  

  

Forest Preserve Report

Once again, we give thanks to River Prairie Group of the Sierra Club Chair Connie Schmidt for her amazing service to our community for recording the local Forest Preserve meetings. Here is her report for January 2025, which will open as a .pdf file. 

We'd also like to congratulate Connie on receiving the Conservation Foundations' Paul Butler Memorial Award for outstanding service, volunteerism, and passion for conservation. We appreciate all you do in making DuPage a greener place, Connie!

 

In Our Community

02/06/25 7 PM DuPage Organic Garden Club - Success with Soil  Join botanist Bill Karges for a presentation on evaluating and improving your soil. Learn how to assess soil type, maintain healthy conditions, and enhance poor soil. The talk will cover soil structure, pH levels, fertilizers, and various amendments, with a special emphasis on organic methods. RSVP here.

02/08/25 10 AM Trickster Cultural Center - Menwidokwek (Good Friends) Art Market & Seed Swap Native American art vendors, family crafts, plant workshops and seed swap. More info here. 

02/11/25 1:30 PM IL Extension Zoom Webinar: Four Seasons Gardening  Join Illinois Extension Horticulture Educator, Nancy Kuhajda, for a lively discussion on winter sowing annual flowers, vegetables, and herbs. Winter sowing is a practice of starting seeds during winter outside using empty plastic jugs. No more thin, weak seedlings, winter sown seedlings are stout with huge root systems. FREE, register here.  

02/19/25 6:30-8 PM, Lombard Garden Club Seed Swap Second annual seed swap to be held in the Plum Meeting Room right off the lobby at Helen Plum Library, Lombard. Free, public invited. 

02/22/25 2:00 PM  McKee House Project - Glen Ellyn Historical Center, 800 N Main St, Glen Ellyn.  Learn about and meet the organizers working to establish DuPage County's first Native American Cultural and Environmental Center. Info here.  

02/22/25 10 AM River Prairie Sierra Club - Stonebarn (Nachusa) Winter Hike Franklin Grove, IL Info here

02/22/25 9:30 AM Wild Edible Plants of the Midwest The Marram Foundation will be offering this in-depth course on how to identify, understand and utilize the wild plants that occur in northeastern Illinois.  There will be 6 full day courses spread throughout 2025 and led by Pat Armstrong. Click here to learn more and register. 

02/28/25 12:30 Lombard Garden Club - Ohara Ikebana Arrangements Guest Speaker E-Ling Lou, master teacher at Ohara School of Ikebana.
Ikebana is the art of Japanese arranging. Ikebana artiest E-Ling Lou will give an overview of Ikebana history and create a couple of Ikebana arrangements. E-Ling volunteers at the Morton Arboretum. Details here.  

02/28/25 FINAL ORDER DEADLINE, Organic Seedling Sale Order now for pickup at the annual Green Garden Fair on May 10th in Elmhurst. Order here. When you pick up, be sure to stop by the Sustain DuPage table to pick up a pack of free seeds!  

Coming up in Sustain DuPage

3/9//25 2 PM Squirrel Nest Annual Meeting - Sustain DuPage Members, please SAVE THE DATE. Invitation with details will be out soon. Any questions, please email our general email here.  

3/15/25 10 AM Pollinator Blitz: Bringing Conservation Home - Mayslake Peabody Estate, Oakbrook. Stop by our booth to learn more about Sustain DuPage, our mission, and how you can get involved. Event details here.      

3/23/25 1:30 PM Pat Armstrong: Prairie Sun Home Tour - Naperville. Look for details in our March newsletter.  

If your organization's event falls within the mission of Sustain DuPage and you'd like to advertise it in our newsletter, please contact us at info@sustaindupage.com.

Stay Up to Date With Sustain DuPage

Did you know 2025 marks Sustain DuPage's 10th anniversary? We're excited about the year ahead and have many programs and activities planned through our various mission projects. As you can see from the image above, that's a lot of projects to keep track of. We do our best to give you the highlights through our monthly newsletter, but many of our main projects also have their own mailing lists that can keep you up to date with their specific events and news.

If you'd like to receive periodic, focused information from these projects, like meeting opportunities and important updates, click on the project name to be taken to its sign-up form.

Gardeners: A living classroom for teaching sustainable practices through growing food and gardeners 

Compost Crew: Actively supporting soil health, reducing waste, and sequestering carbon through composting and education

Food Security Squad: Connecting gardeners to local food pantries in order to decrease both food waste and hunger

Seed Cache: Building food sovereignty through the practice of saving and sharing seeds.

Community Cooking: Sharing traditions through preparing meals from local, seasonal, and sustainably grown foods.

Turners Reading Group: Building community and broadening understanding through discussion of sustainability topics and literature

Creators: Using art and creativity as a tool for sharing skills and for cultural transformation

Protectors: Nurturing our landscape for the benefit and diversity of our native plants and wildlife

DOFS (DuPagers Organized For Sustainability): Amplifying sustainable practices in DuPage county through reasonable, local public policy reform

Sustain DuPage Public Calendar

Check your calendars! After a December brainstorming session, we are happy to announce that most of our major events for the 2025 calendar year are already scheduled and posted on our Google Calendar. Additional details will be added as events approach, and we will most likely be adding more workshops as the year unfolds. However, this should help all of us plan ahead for our favorite events! 

Please note: Under our calendar in the link above you will see an information box titled SD Public with the local time zone listed. This is the name of our calendar. By clicking the "Add to Google Calendar" link, our SD events will show up in your personal Google Calendar so you won't miss a thing!