Chicago's Quilen Blackwell Named CNN Hero of the Year for Transforming Vacant Lots Into Flower Farms That Employ At-Risk Youth

In the Englewood neighborhood of Chicago's South Side — a community that has long struggled with poverty, violence, and disinvestment — something beautiful is literally growing. Quilen Blackwell's nonprofit Southside Blooms has transformed six vacant lots into thriving flower farms, and in December 2025, CNN named him its Hero of the Year.

Blackwell grew up middle-class in Madison, Wisconsin, joined the Peace Corps after college, and served in rural Thailand. When he moved to Chicago for ministry school, he began tutoring students at a high school in Englewood. What he saw — talented young people with no economic opportunities — changed the trajectory of his life.

“Quilen Blackwell's nonprofit Southside Blooms has transformed six vacant lots into thriving flower farms, and in December 2025, CNN named him its Hero of the Year.”

Starting in 2019, Blackwell launched a "farm-to-vase" flower operation. The model is elegantly simple: grow flowers on vacant lots that would otherwise be magnets for illegal dumping, then arrange and sell them through a nonprofit shop. The operation creates real jobs in floral arranging, logistics, customer service, and agricultural management.

Today, Southside Blooms employs 25 young people between the ages of 16 and 25, primarily from the surrounding community. The flowers are sold through their storefront and shipped nationwide, generating revenue that sustains the program while beautifying a neighborhood that sorely needs it.

The CNN Hero of the Year award came with $100,000 in prize money, which Blackwell plans to use to open a second location on Chicago's west side in the spring of 2026. The expansion will create additional jobs and bring the flower farm model to another underserved community.

What makes Southside Blooms remarkable is not just the employment it provides but the transformation it catalyzes. Young workers learn professional skills, build resumes, and gain confidence. Vacant lots become community gathering spaces. Neighbors who once avoided blighted blocks now stop to admire the blooms. In Englewood, flowers are proving to be seeds of something much larger — hope, opportunity, and community renewal.