Tag: Chicago

  • Small Acts of Kindness

    I told my mom that I was going to have a new job title by the end of this year that contains the word “Engineer” in it, and she was so happy for me, but also very confused. She thought that my volunteer work as a certified Openlands TreeKeeper® was my full-time job and that […]

  • Community Conversations

    I attended an Environmental Justice workshop, facilitated by Ayesha Qazu-Lampert and Ylanda Wilhite of Chicago Environmental Educators at the Academy for Global Citizenship at 4942 W 44th St, Chicago, IL 60638. Lupe Escárcega and Danielle Russell from Openlands is how I learned about the event. I didn’t grow up with many of the environmental career […]

  • Falling Leaves

    autumn leaves falling spilling rain from cloudy skies goodbye summer Since I could never be Japanese, despite being born and raised in Tokyo, the urban forests that surrounded me throughout my childhood are my only truth that Japan is home. When my father passed, we had to move out of the house that we called […]

  • Planting Trees

    On October 25th, 2018, my colleagues and I planted native trees with Openlands to increase the green canopy at what was then called Douglas Park (renamed Douglass Park after Anna and Frederick Douglass). This was a life changing experience for me. I always loved nature in all the places I have traveled, but this felt […]