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Someone You Should Know: Volunteer Gardener Joe Capobianco

(CBS) – A Chicago man's lifelong love of gardening is helping to brighten up a neighborhood on the Northwest Side.

Joe Capobianco is someone you should know, CBS 2's Harry Portefield reports.

Often with shovel in hand, he has become a visible and frequent figure in the Galewood community.

The 80-year-old is retired from the Social Security Administration, where he worked for 30 years.

He has been taking care of gardens in the Galewood neighborhood as a volunteer for 33 years, since the early 1980s. Currently, he works to maintain eight gardens in the area.

He created one of them at the intersection of Palmer and Newland streets in 1990. It's credited with helping sell a property next door.

His green thumb began as a kid, working on a victory garden during World War II. Since then, he says, it has always been a labor of love.

 

 

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