June 03--The Dutch king and queen's whirlwind U.S. tour will bring them to a high school on the Far South Side on Wednesday for a picnic and seminars on urban farming.
D'Andre Weaver, principal of Gwendolyn Brooks College Preparatory Academy, a selective enrollment school in the Pullman neighborhood, said students are gearing up to host tours and other special events with King Willem-Alexander and Queen Maxima of the Netherlands. Mayor Rahm Emanuel is scheduled to be on hand.
"Everyone's so excited," Weaver said. "Kids are going to be leading tours; there will be a historical game and a picnic."
The school's spoken word club will perform, and the royal couple will take part in a seminar on urban farming, Weaver said. Brooks has a large "learning garden" where students grow crops they donate to various area organizations, he said. "The focus will be on how to expand urban farming, something the royal couple is interested in," Weaver said.
The stop at Brooks is one of several the couple will make in Chicago. They are scheduled to appear at Northwestern University's Feinberg School of Medicine to announce a collaboration between the school and institutions in the Netherlands about "the study of healthy aging," according to Northwestern.
The king and queen were also set to tour the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, according to a Dutch government news release.
And there was a Tuesday night dinner they attended at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, according to that group.
The pair also visited Washington and Grand Rapids, Mich., as part of their three-city tour.
