During our 2022 Parks as Democracy? Luncheon and Conference, we celebrated individuals and groups who do so much for Chicago's parks and park users. Click here to return to the full list of VIP (Volunteers-in-Parks) Awardees.

​“Smoky Sakurada” Friends of Friends of the Parks
Illinois Institute of Technology Professors Maria Villalobos and Ron Henderson and Students of Landscape Architecture + Urbanism Program

In honor of a beloved volunteer of Friends of the Parks, the late Smoky Sakurada, we periodically highlight other committed partners that donate time and demonstrate significant commitment to our organization way above and beyond the call of duty. This year’s Friends of Friends of the Parks are Illinois Institute of Technology Professors Maria Villalobos and Ron Henderson and Students of the Landscape Architecture + Urbanism program.

Friends of the Parks Executive Director Juanita Irizarry and Dr. Maria Villalobos met as mayoral appointees to the Lincoln Yards Community Advisory Council and quickly connected and became behind-the-scenes thought and strategy partners in favor of vibrant public parkland there and elsewhere. They realized the connection they both had to then FOTP-board member Anton Seals’ work in support of the actualization of the Englewood Nature Trail. And the rest is history. Dr. Villalobos has supported FOTP’s work directly by participating in and moderating FOTP Netsch Lecture discussions and has engaged Juanita to provide a tour and input related to Humboldt Park and The Bloomingdale Trail and as a jurist in her students’ mid-term and finals presentations related to Humboldt Park, Garfield Park, and the Englewood Nature Trail. Another of her students participated in another lecture and did a presentation about park history as part of an FOTP staff training.

Maria also brought us into relationship with IIT’s Dr. Ron Henderson, who has engaged his students around a couple of FOTP projects, challenging them to think through real world applications of landscape design. The first project was a design studio project to offer alternative visions for the future DuSable Park site as part of inspiring thinking and modeling a public involvement process ahead of the anticipated park district design process for the park. The project included meetings with our DuSable Park Coalition and other stakeholders and attending our summer Death of DuSable commemoration. The process included a virtual Netsch Lecture presentation and an in-person exhibition at IIT of the students’ models for the park. This work has led to an invitation from the Chicago Park District for Ron to serve alongside Juanita and DuSable Park Coalition members on the current DuSable Park Framework Plan, where he is a strong advocate for positions FOTP cares about, including on-going agitation for the inclusion of the story of Kitihawa and the Pottawatomi tribe as part of the success of DuSable’s role in the region. Meanwhile, over this summer, he engaged independent study students to take a look at the Confined Disposal Facility (at the confluence of Lake Michigan and the Calumet River, and adjacent to Calumet Park) to imagine what it could look like fully converted into a park. The student designs were informed by previous schematics from our Last 4 Miles initiative community charrettes years ago, as well as updated neighborhood input. Each student vision was unique, and in their presentations they brought passion and expertise in converting dredge and landfill facilities into parks, slate material, and landscape architecture. The development of updated alternative visions for the CDF site is a major contribution in the fight to close and cap the CDF site which threatens our lakefront, helping to inspire and galvanize the community in the collective advocacy effort to return the land for community use.​​