Northwest Indiana One Block Projects
Hammond and Michigan City, Indiana One Block at a Time (One Block) projects focused on enhancing neighborhood resilience by integrating rainwater harvesting practices and rain gardens into community gardens in food-scarce neighborhoods. The InnerMission Neighborhood Farm in Hammond and the Smrt Community Center in Michigan City community gardens provide social cohesion to their neighbors while alleviating the lack of access to fresh food. The One Block team conducted focus groups and interviews with local leaders, site managers and volunteers to identify the opportunities, barriers and preferences of multifunction green infrastructure on their sites and neighborhoods. Based on the community feedback, the team and local leads co-designed and co-built on-site rainwater capturing surfaces, storage and distribution solutions for irrigation of food crops, and rain gardens for flood management and cistern overflow. These efforts are integrated into on-site management and volunteer training to enhance local knowledge and leadership capacity. The team also created community summaries and guidance documents for design and maintenance to support long-term management with the local leaders.
Michigan City, Indiana
2023_OneBlock_MichiganCity_Final.pdfHammond, Indiana
2023_OneBlock_Hammond_Final.pdfMore details about the Indiana projects
Collaborators and partner organizations
InnerMission Neighborhood Farm, Hammond, Indiana
Rebecca Koetz, Ag & Natural Resources Extension Educator, Purdue Extension Lake County
Angelica Navarro, InnerMission Neighborhood Farm Garden Manager
Victor Roman, InnerMission Neighborhood Farm Garden Manager
Jose Guadalupe Valtierra, Community Development Extension Educator, Purdue Extension Lake County
Amber Zimmer, Community Wellness Coordinator, Purdue Extension Nutrition Education Program
Madeline & George Smrt Community Center, Michigan City, Indiana
Caroline Arnett, Community Wellness Coordinator, Purdue Extension Nutrition Education Program
Mary Komenas, Community Development Extension Educator, Purdue Extension LaPorte County
Brian Thomas, Madeline & George Smrt Community Center Manager
Purdue University
Dr. Robert Stwalley, Associate Clinical Professor, Purdue University Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering
Dr. Aaron Thompson, Associate Professor, Purdue University Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture
Daniel Walker, Community Development Regional Educator, Purdue Extension, Illinois – Indiana Sea Grant
Student Researchers and Interns 2021-2022
Krysztof Davis, Purdue University Department of Horticulture and Landscape Architecture
Hanna Fulford, Purdue University Environmental & Ecological Engineering
Payton Ginestra, Purdue University Natural Resources & Environmental Science
Sebastian Stambaugh, Purdue University Department of Agricultural & Biological Engineering
Additional gratitude to:
Pat McMillan for his time, expertise, and tools
Carol Stwalley
The Gate Church for storage of equipment and supplies
Neighborhood volunteers