Experimental Station: Urban Hub for Community Renewal and Green Initiatives

Established in 2002, the Experimental Station in the city's Woodlawn neighborhood is thriving as an innovative center offering programs and projects benefiting local residents while blending art, education, social activism and environmental initiatives.

Directors of the organization describe it as "a not-for-profit (501-c-3) incubator of innovative cultural, educational, and environmental projects and small-scale enterprises."

This past week, the Experimental Station opened their new Backstory Cafe, which will serve as both a bookshop and a community coffeehouse. The cafe is in addition to a food buying club, recycled bicycle shop, independent publishing and art studio space already housed at the building.

Just this May, the organization debuted the 61st Street Farmers Market, a neighborhood farmers market offering organic and locally produced flowers, cheese, meat, baked goods and produce in an effort to directly address the area's lack of fresh and wholesome food. Described as a "food desert" in a recent study, the Woodlawn neighborhood has for years been lacking access to nutritious food.

Members of the organization's food buying club, the Woodlawn Buying Club, are able to purchase in bulk from United Natural Food, Inc., the supplier of Whole Foods, cutting costs on individual items and fuel needed for trips back and forth to the grocery.

The Blackstone Bicycle Works is a "recyclery" offering refurbished bikes through a retail storefront. New bikes are created from donated bicycles that might otherwise be thrown away. 

The bike shop hosts a Youth Bicycle Education program that includes summer, after school and outreach offerings for children. Through the project, neighborhood kids can learn about business practices and maintenance/repair skills, and even earn their way to owning their own bike. According to the organization's website, the program has been very successful.

"Starting with flat repair and working up, Woodlawn children, aged 9-16, learn not only how to fix and maintain their own modes of transportation, but how to conduct themselves in a business setting. Once a child accumulates 25 hours in the shop, they can pick a bike from our refurbished selection, along with a new helmet and lock. Since 1994, the Earn-a-Bike Program has helped hundreds of Woodlawn children mature into adulthood."