Mokena Family Seeks to Start Community Farm with Kickstarter Campaign

MOKENA, IL - The Willis family moved to Mokena less than a year ago, but began their life-changing move toward a healthy and pure lifestyle a few years back.

John and Aimee Willis, both 31, and their three children: Dean, 7; June, 6 and Jase, 2 are all avid farmers. Even Jase, who dad says asks to help out with the family’s farm everyday.

“He’s really into it,” said John Willis, who with Aimee seeks to open LOCAL 180°, a planned farm that’s just under four acres near Marley Candles on the east side of Interstate 80 in Mokena.

The family has purchased the land, closing on a deal in the coming weeks, and seeks to share their love of farming with others seeking a healthier lifestyle.

“We’ll have a market garden area where we’ll raise different types of vegetables, fruits and herbs and have a public farmstand,” said John, a union engineer who grew up in the city of Chicago and did not find his passion for farming until he started a family and moved to the far south suburbs.

“I never cared about food, how it was grown or handled and transported,” said John. “But that started when we had kids and I would always worry about not having enough fruits and vegetables for them. When we started buying more of them, we realized how a lot of them aren’t grown in the greatest conditions and get transported thousands of miles. That didn’t appeal to me as a consumer.”

John’s move to a healthier lifestyle came before the unsettling news that doctors diagnosed him with Dilated cardiomyopathy - a heart condition in which the heart's ability to pump blood is decreased because the heart's main pumping chamber, the left ventricle, is enlarged and weakened, according to Medicine.net.

“Then I knew I had to purify my life,” he said. “We started buying whole foods and less processed foods. We removed household chemicals and I began taking farming classes and training courses. When we moved (to Mokena) we began raising chickens and ducks, became interested in farming and realized it could be a viable career.”

Because of John’s heart condition, it’s best that he not participate in any elevated work, which can sometimes be a conflict with his job as a stationery engineer with Local 399 since much of the work there involves being on a ladder.

“It’s best for me to work near the ground, and what’s closer to the ground than being a farmer?” he said.

The LOCAL 180° farm (named partly after the union and partly due to his family’s ‘180-degree’ shift to a healthy lifestyle) will offer volunteer opportunities, tours for “anyone interested in learning about farming, what animals are found on the farm and what we do here” and possibly a regularly held Farmer’s Market, John said.

To get it started, though, the family will need a bit of financial assistance. A Kickstarter campaign that will expire on Monday, Feb. 20 seeks $10,000. More than 20 percent of that has been pledged, but due to Kickstarter’s rules it could all be lost if the goal amount isn’t met by the deadline.

John said the $10,000 will go to fund the farm’s electric needs and speeding up the process to make it a public entity. Because the area is already zoned A1 agriculture, no other village requirements would be needed.

If the Kickstarter campaign is not successful, John said the plan would still be to create the family farm but “we’d have to start slower than originally planned.”

John says farming has transformed his family and that others should consider embarking on the endeavor. “I believe (humans) separated ourselves from raising our own food so dramatically that we don’t understand how to do it anymore,” he said. “A lot of our friends cook, but use their kitchens as just areas to prepare. They don’t know how to raise their own food and I do not believe that is healthy for us.

“I wanted to reconnect my family to it and have others realize there’s no reason to have food shipped from thousands of miles away when a majority of it can be raised in this area.”

To pledge an amount for the Willis Family Farm, find their Kickstarter campaign here.

Photos submitted by the Willis Family