Lisa Barkley shows me the view of her fruit tree orchard from the window of her bright yellow kitchen. “We have apple trees, pear trees, plum trees, cherry trees, peach, apricot and nectarine trees,” Barkley says. She sounds surprised by the bounty she helped create, “A grapevine – we have Concord grapes out there. Wow!”
Barkley lives in the same 3-bedroom unit in the Haddington Homes public housing project at 55th and Vine Street where she was born. As a child, she played games on Pearl Street. As a young woman, she was the secretary for the Haddington tenant council, and in 1999 she was voted the block captain.
From her home, she has watched her community evolve. “There were never flowers, no plants, just trees and some shrubbery here and there,” she remembers. "But it was clean. The adults really took ownership of where they lived." To read more about Lisa Barkley and many other block captains check out our website Them That Do.