The Seattle Parks Department is starting nine such pilot gardens in an effort to connect communities with each other and with a sustainable, nourishing food system. In addition to the vegetable garden there will be cooking demonstrations and community meals, and during the school year local students will be largely responsible for caring for the garden, integrating it into educational opportunities. Bleeding heart liberals, rejoice!
The Miller CC Garden is a fledgling project, with raised beds getting built the second week in July and the first planning/working party tentatively scheduled for July 21.
In addition to coordinating volunteers - of which I'm thrilled to say there are quite a few interested parties - I've started a blog and, believe it or not, a Facebook account for the garden (if you want to "like" the project, search for Miller Community Center Garden).
Can we talk for a moment about how creepy Facebook is? I created this account with the Miller CC email address and didn't use any personal information, yet it still managed to recommend that I "friend" two dudes I knew years ago in Philadelphia and whose email addresses I don't even have in case FB was able to somehow leach its way into another open browser where I was logged into my personal account. HOW DOES IT DO THAT? Reason number 1,687 why I'm not on Facebook, at least not personally.
Anyhoo, I've been searching for just such a volunteer opportunity and I can't believe something exists that so perfectly connects so many of my passions - gardening, building community, sustainable food education, delicious food, and language acquisition (one of the local schools primarily serves English language learners) literally fell into my lap.
I fully accept the premise that volunteering is an inherently selfish activity because it makes us feel warm and fuzzy, because frankly, I like feeling warm and fuzzy. Hooray for giving back to get something out of it!
No comments:
Post a Comment