The Office of Sustainability and Resilience and Public Works Department partnered with the Oak Park Public Library and West Cook Wild Ones to host Native Gardening for the Neighborhood on March 16. The event featured speakers Christine Nye and Ken Williams discussing how to design, plant and maintain native gardens in the front yard or parkway of a home. The event was followed with a Q&A session with the speakers and Forestry Superintendent Grant Jones. More than 200 attendees participated in person and online. The event was intended to support the Village’s new Parkway Ordinance, approved at the March 18 Village Board Meeting, and promote the transition of turf grass areas of the Village to native gardens. To further support native gardening, the Village is partnering with West Cook Wild Ones to offer Oak Park residents a $20 discount on orders through the West Cook Native Plant Sale. Supply is limited. Click here for more information and to place an order.

The Public Health Department is conducting a community health survey, and ALL Oak Park households are invited to participate. The survey should take about 10-12 minutes to complete and all responses will remain anonymous, confidential and will be used solely to improve local health services. Community feedback and experiences will provide the Village with valuable insights as the Public Health Department works to create priorities and programming for the coming years. Click here to take the survey.

Patrons of The Avenue parking garage, located at 720 North Blvd., will notice construction activity on the first level beginning Monday, March 24 as construction crews will continue essential facility improvements that began last year. Staging for the work began recently, resulting in the temporary closure of some parking spaces, as well as the relocation of handicapped parking spaces and bike racks. The project is expected to be completed within two weeks. During this time, ample parking will remain available in other areas of this Village-owned garage.

The Village’s first round of street sweeping provided by Advance Sweeping Services is scheduled to begin Monday, March 24, weather permitting. Sweeping will occur in designated cycles across various areas of Oak Park, including residential streets, business districts and permit parking zones. Street sweeping will take place overnight in most areas and in parking permitted areas as posted. Residents are asked to refrain from blowing leaves, grass clippings or other debris onto the street as such actions can block storm drains and reduce the effectiveness of street sweeping efforts. For more information, contact 708.358.5700 or publicworks@oak-park.us.

The Village's Women's History Month panel discussion is taking place at 11 a.m. this Saturday, March 22 in the Veterans Room at the Oak Park Public Library. The free event, which is being organized by the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, will include refreshments and will feature several generations of local difference makers discussing the national Women's History Month Theme: Moving Forward Together! Women Educating and Inspiring Generations. Find information about the panelists at www.oak-park.us/WHM25.

The Village is accepting applications for the Climate Ready Energy Grant program, which is designed to provide financial assistance for residents to support a range of energy upgrades and retrofits. All households are eligible to apply, with grant funding up to $1,000, $5,000 and $10,000 available depending on the household’s income. Learn what expenses are eligible and how to apply at www.oak-park.us/EnergyGrants.

The Office of Sustainability & Resilience is joining with community partners to promote a wide range of Earth Month activities throughout April. Check out www.oak-park.us/SustainabilityEvents for a list of upcoming events. From gardening workshops to motivational speakers to environmental documentaries and the family-friendly Oak Park Eco-Extravaganza, Earth Month will have something for everyone.

In celebration of Earth Month and National Volunteer Week, the Village Clerk’s Office is organizing a Spring Neighborhood Cleanup on Saturday, April 12. This family-friendly event will begin with a complimentary light breakfast at 8:30 a.m. at Village Hall. From 9 a.m. until approximately 1 p.m., volunteers – including Oak Park elected officials and staff – will take the streets for a coordinated effort to clean up the community. The Village will be providing heavy duty trash bags, coated safety gloves, brooms, shovels and litter pickers for the event. Volunteers of all ages are welcome to participate and will receive a neighborhood cleanup t-shirt. All participants, or a guardian, will be asked to sign a liability waiver on site before the start of the activity. For more information about Oak Park’s spring clean-up, please contact the Office of the Village Clerk at 708.358.5670 or e-mail clerk@oak-park.us.

Local organizations are invited to participate in the 51st annual A Day in Our Village, Oak Park’s annual festival celebrating diversity and community involvement. Scheduled for Sunday, June 1, the event features activity and information booths in Scoville Park at Lake Street and Oak Park Avenue and live entertainment. Groups can register via an online form.  More information is available at www.oak-park.us/dayinourvillage or by contacting 708.358.5408 or community@oak-park.us.

Join the Historic Preservation Commission for a presentation from guest speaker Frank Heitzman on incentives for owners of historic homes to remodel or restore rather than tear down and build new. This latest installment of the HPC's Speaker Series will take place at 6:30 p.m. on Thursday, March 27 in Council Chambers at Village Hall. More information is at www.oak-park.us/SpeakerSeries.

Visit Oak Park is the state-certified tourism marketing entity representing Oak Park and nearby communities, and one of its most important duties is the promotion of local tourism attractions, events, hotels, Airbnbs and businesses. For its efforts, Visit Oak Park has had a lot of success over the last several years. To quantify success, consider its search engine optimization (SEO) growth, which has improved from $79,200 year over year in 2022 to $255,100 in 2023 and $507,900 in 2024. SEO Value refers to the estimated monetary worth or potential benefit an entity’s website gains from its organic search engine ranking. Another important data point is organic traffic (OR), which quantifies the number of website visitors coming from unpaid search results. It also represents how much money is needed to invest in digital ads to ensure the necessary website traffic gains to successfully promote tourism attractions, events, hotels and businesses. The primary factor contributing to SEO is OR attributed to a website’s optimized content and ranking.

This quarter, Visit Oak Park’s OR was 71%. Web pages such as Visit Oak Park’s, with high SEO value, rank higher on search engines, attract more organic traffic and drive long-term tourism results without a reliance on paid advertising. Organic traffic tends to convert at a higher rate compared to other channels, including paid ads and social media, particularly for local businesses. Visit Oak Park Executive Director Annie Coakley stated, “This information continues to show how Visit Oak Park is investing local funds wisely to the benefit of Oak Park and its neighboring communities.”

Moses Valdez, owner of Oak Park business Style Society and president of the Hemingway Business District, celebrated the ribbon cutting of his new business alongside Village Development Services staff, Chamber of Commerce representatives and a slew of friends, family and colleagues. Moses has brought together a curated collection of local artisans all under one roof, displaying unique goods such as clothing, accessories and home decor that you won’t find anywhere else. Style Society can be found in the Hemingway Business District at 139 N. Oak Park Ave. and has an active online presence on its Facebook page.

Betty White, who was born in Oak Park in 1922, is being honored by the U.S. Postal Service with a new stamp graced with her likeness and exuding her spritely sense of fun. A ceremony to unveil the stamp will take place at 11 a.m. this Friday, March 28 the Oak Park Post Office, 901 Lake St. More information is at www.oak-park.us/BettyWhiteStamp.

Trenching was completed across the intersection of Washington Boulevard and Euclid Avenue, and the temporary concrete patch was installed as work continued on ComEd’s conduit installation project for the USPS facility in Forest Park. Trenching has also been completed between Adams Street and Jackson Boulevard on Euclid. Next week trenching will begin on the 500 block of S. Euclid and Randolph Street between Euclid and Wesley Avenue.