In 2012, 42 refugee families turned a vacant lot in Chicago’s Albany Park neighborhood into a productive garden. Many came from farming communities in Burma and Bhutan, now living in an urban environment for the first time. They grew food for home consumption and for sale, using only organic practices. Word spread to other families. Then more families. Then more.
That garden became Global Gardens Chicago.
Today Global Gardens is a thriving one-acre urban farm serving more than 70 refugee and asylum-seeking families from Burma, Bhutan, Cambodia, and various African countries. The farm has 68 family garden plots for home consumption and six larger plots managed by market farmers who grow for sale. All farming is done using organic, pesticide-free practices on healthy, living soil.
Global Gardens became an official nonprofit in 2017. In 2019 they formalized their Market Farmer Program, which today supports six market farmers who sell produce at four farmers markets a week across Chicago neighborhoods, through a CSA program, to local restaurants, and to wholesale buyers. In 2026, four additional refugee market farmers will join the program. New market farmers will be mentored by current ones through a five-year program. Every dollar the market farmers earn goes directly to them as their income. In 2025, those six farmers collectively generated over $107,000. That same year they donated over $23,000 worth of produce to seven local food pantries and food security organizations.
The farm is also a cultural gathering place. Global Gardens runs a Second Saturday Concert Series from May through September featuring music rooted in different cultural traditions, with food prepared and served by the farmers. For many of the Burmese families at Global Gardens, this is one of the only places in Chicago where they can access and share food from home — dishes like fermented tea leaf salad and tofu salad that have no restaurant equivalent in the city. The cooking class series gives farmers the opportunity to teach farm-to-table dishes from their home countries, with local chefs also participating.
In 2025 Global Gardens was voted Best Environmental Partner by the Albany Park Chamber of Commerce and North River Commission and was selected as a Neighborhood Cultural Spotlight by the Chicago Department of Cultural and Special Events for June 2025 through June 2026.
Executive Director Haley LeRand has been part of Global Gardens for nearly a decade, first as a volunteer, then as Farm Manager, and now as Executive Director.
Big Green’s Community Grant gave Global Gardens the resources to grow further with something they had already built. Big Green is committed to supporting leaders already trusted, already working, already rooted in the communities they serve. Global Gardens Chicago is living proof that community knows what community needs.
