Nate Tubbs and The Island, Chicago

<p>In 2016, Nate Tubbs and his family moved to The Island — a micro-neighborhood on Chicago's West Side that sits at the intersection of three large and very different communities. Nate is a communications professional and community organizer who had worked in the nonprofit sector for years, but moving to The Island was different. This wasn't about serving a community from the outside. It was about becoming a neighbor. For several years, Nate did what most institutional approaches skip: he listened. He went to local meetings, spent time on the block, and paid attention to what neighbors talked about when they talked about their streets. Two things kept coming up — the neighborhood lacked third spaces where people could simply gather, and a vacant city-owned lot on the block had become a dumping ground for weeds, garbage, and abandoned vehicles.</p><p>In the spring of 2018, Nate and his neighbors organized an Earth Day cleanup of the vacant lot. They invited the local school, city departments, and anyone on the block who wanted to show up. That single day — picking up trash, pulling weeds, imagining what the space could become — sparked something. The cleanups became regular. The sense of possibility grew. By 2020, the lot was secured as a NeighborSpace — part of a citywide land trust — and became part of the West Side Nature Play Network. Design teams from NeighborSpace and Human Scale led a community design process, involving residents young and old in shaping what the space would become.</p><p>In the fall of 2021, the Island Oasis Nature Play Garden opened. It's now used for relaxation, gardening, community meetings, movie nights, celebrations, and annual events like Taco Fest and a Halloween Spooktacular. But the garden was just the visible part of something deeper. Around the same time, Nate helped restart the Island Civic Association — a dormant neighborhood group — and has served as its president for four years. He chairs the Local School Council at the neighborhood elementary school, where he's served for eight years. And through Parish Collective, he has connected with a national network of neighborhood practitioners who share a commitment to being present in their places over the long term.</p>