Meet Johnsley,  one of Mary Lou's little friends she made during her travels to Haiti.

Meet Johnsley,  one of Mary Lou's little friends she made during her travels to Haiti.

Chance encounters

Our hearts are heavy over the loss of our dear friend Mary Lou.  

If you're here reading this, chances are your heart is heavy too.

We're grateful that Mary Lou and her family feel strongly about the work that we're doing in our community to suggest you take time to find out a bit more about us.

Mary Lou was always teaching and sharing with all of us.  She was responsible for having connected us with our most impactful project to date - our Hope 4 Haiti project we started in 2007.

It was a chance meeting in which Mary Lou's dear friend, Carol Kinder, introduced us at a gathering and said she thought we should know about each other and may be able to help one another.  

We're not so sure what help we provided to Mary Lou over the years but her encouragement and guidance, along with ongoing counsel from Cara, allowed us to impact our dear friend Maxandre and his community in Leogane, Haiti, in ways we'll forever regard as our most rewarding initiative.

Mary Lou was our steady guide in that work.

The past two years we've embarked on an effort closer to home with our Sunny Patch Project.

Upon learning that over 43% of families in Darien School District 61 struggle with food insecurity and access to nutritional foods we knew we'd found our next project.

We started a small community container garden in an effort to raise awareness about our struggling neighbors.  We believed that if we could get our neighbors growing food together that we stood to have the most meaningful conversations about food and neighbors struggling to access it.

We've worked since the spring of 2015 to provide garden space and gentle garden guidance to some of our at-risk neighbors. We've grown food together and have shared over 2,300 pounds of garden fresh foods with local families.  

Our community has engaged in this worthwhile project with us and we're currently sowing the first seeds of our third growing season.

Supporting this work means you're supporting local families and their ability to grow some of their own food this season.  

It's only appropriate that for our upcoming season we intend to add local school gardens to our network.  Funds donated here will help us add productive grow spaces to some of our area school grounds and continue the discussion about our food systems and sustainability.

Again, we are moved to think that Mary Lou and her family feel so strongly about this work to support us in such a way.

We have all lost a very dear friend.

Peace friend.

 

In Memoriam/Support Sunny Patch
“To laugh often and much; To win the respect of intelligent people and the affection of children; To earn the appreciation of honest critics and endure the betrayal of false friends; To appreciate beauty, to find the best in others; To leave the world a bit better, whether by a healthy child, a garden patch, or a redeemed social condition; To know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived. This is to have succeeded.”
— Ralph Waldo Emerson

If you care to mail a check instead of using a credit card please make checks payable to:

Good Worx Inc. and send to our mailing address below:

 

Good Worx Inc.

c/o Cynthia McGann

1906 Sweetbriar Lane

Darien, IL 60561

 

We will provide you with a receipt for tax purposes.  Thank you for your support!

To learn a bit more about how Mary Lou impacted our work over the years, visit our Hope4Haiti timeline: