January 31, 2023
Dear friend of the parks,

You may remember the monthly walking series we conducted a few years ago entitled “Walk with Juanita.” We visited a different park each time, criss-crossing the city. It was my need to get out and move my body more that inspired that idea. Plus, I thought it would be good to visit parks that I didn’t get to often.

Though the original inspiration was my physical fitness, the walks also served the purpose of a “meet-up” of FOTP friends and members as well as the chance to observe and learn about conditions and issues in parks that we might want to advocate about.

After that year, we transitioned to encouraging and supporting the development of walking clubs in a number of parks. Those also started with an emphasis on the health benefits of walking in parks. We also sought to identify, gather, and mobilize neighbors who might also be inspired to form a Park Advisory Council to promote greater community ownership of the park.
During the pandemic, lots of others figured out that we were onto something, as so many Chicagoans turned to parks for physical or mental health respite in the midst of COVID-19. We experimented with virtual park tours and socially-distanced park walks with participants linked by Zoom. And the more we wandered our parks and walked with friends, the more other interests arose. A fascination with the birds we were seeing on walks grew during the pandemic, mirroring the boom in birding that took place nationally.

So we’ve been thinking about how and where to keep supporting this work, and then we got a request to revisit the Walks with Juanita.

Thus “Walk with FOTP in 2023” was born! We will gather at a different park every 2nd Saturday of the month at 10am for 2 hours of strolling, conversation, and discovery.
I am not committed to personally participate with every walk this year, but there will always be FOTP staff—and maybe board members—present to welcome and lead the way. Our hope is that it will be a great time of connecting as well as getting out in nature and moving our bodies.

But I am personally curating and leading the February walk: in Humboldt Park!

Humboldt Park is my life-long neighborhood park and the site of important advocacy concerns right now. I will provide some background about the park and its role in our neighborhood. At the very least, we will visit the site of the unpermitted construction at the National Museum of Puerto Rican Arts and Culture as well as ponder issues related to the orange tents of unhoused neighbors that dot the park.
Photo: Plij at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0
Photo: Juanita Irizarry
We hope friends of the parks from far and wide will see this as a chance to check in with each other. Plus, we’ll invite neighbors who care about these local issues as well as our many friends who help steward the park at this, our largest Earth Day hub site.

For now you can email at us at info@fotp.org to express interest in attending. We will plan to meet at the boathouse where there is parking. But we will be watching the weather and deciding if we need to adjust our plans in any way.

Mark your calendars and watch for more details to follow!

In solidarity,

Juanita Irizarry
Executive Director
Friends of the Parks
312-857-2757
info@fotp.org