Sweet Beginnings - Beeline Products
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Purchase Beeline Honey:
May - October
Wednesdays; 7 a.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Green City Farmer’s Market in Lincoln Park - just north of North Avenue between Clark Street and Stockton Avenue.
Saturdays from 7 a.m. to 1 p.m.
Oak Park Farmer’s Market - 460 Lake Street, Oak Park, Illinois.
November - December
Saturdays indoors at the Lincoln Park Zoo lion house.
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Beeline is the product name for the honey grown and harvested by the Sweet Beginnings program of the North Lawndale Employment Network. Sweet Beginnings is a transitional jobs initiative created to provide local employment for formerly incarcerated individuals and other low-income North Lawndale residents, and to promote community economic development. Sweet Beginnings participants grow and harvest chemical-free honey and related products in the North Lawndale neighborhood of Chicago, an urban environment.
The honey comes from apiaries located in the North Lawndale community on the West Side of Chicago, the largest of which is located at 3700 West Fillmore Street. We have about 40 beehives at the Fillmore site, producing natural, chemical-free honey. Honey produced in urban areas is of higher quality and has a better taste than rural farmed honey, because urban bees can easily travel to a high density of well-maintained parks, gardens, and flower beds. Public and private gardens within the city boast a great variety of flower species, which lend varied flavors to the honey produced with the different nectars. In contrast, bees producing honey in rural areas must travel long distances each day for less nectar. Also, a few flower species typically dominate these rural environments, limiting the nectars that flavor the honey. Sweet Beginnings beehives are located near Garfield and Douglass Parks and countless residential gardens.
NLEN established Sweet Beginnings to help fight the many problems facing North Lawndale residents. The North Lawndale community struggles with the persistent issues of crime, drugs, and poverty that are common among many inner city neighborhoods that lack economic opportunity. Our social mission is to catalyze development that positively affects residents of the economically depressed community of North Lawndale by transforming long-vacant and neglected land into productive gardens and apiaries, and by training and employing community residents who are locked out of the traditional labor market because of criminal records and other barriers to employment. We are also developing a collaborative that will enable locally trained beekeepers and growers to own a share of the business or follow other entrepreneurial aspirations.
Sweet Beginnings operates as a paid training program for community residents with criminal backgrounds who find it difficult to attach to the mainstream labor market. Based on both state legislation and private company policies, formerly incarcerated individuals are barred from many jobs, making it very difficult to support themselves and their families without returning to a life of crime. The Sweet Beginnings Initiative is meant to be just that: a sweet beginning or a second chance for individuals who have decided to re-enter and positively contribute to society.
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