City of Seattle’s P-Patch Community Gardening Program Celebrates 50th Anniversary
2023 Proclaimed the “Year of Local community Gardening”
Seattle Town Council and Mayor Bruce Harrell have proclaimed 2023 to be the 12 months of Group Gardening in honor of the P-Patch Community Gardening Program’s 50th anniversary. Seattle Section of Neighborhoods team were introduced with the formal proclamation at the January 31 conference of the whole Seattle Metropolis Council.
“This is a remarkable milestone for our P-Patch application, which for half a century has established the illustration for community gardening by expanding obtain to regionally developed, wholesome meals and bringing individuals jointly to embody our A single Seattle values of provider and partnership,” said Mayor Bruce Harrell. “The software has built terrific strides to split down obstacles and make gardening extra inclusive and obtainable to all, and we are psyched to see how it continues to grow and create robust communities in the decades to arrive.”
“Our City’s P-Patch application has accomplished amazing operate to create and manage neighborhood effectively-staying when addressing foodstuff access for all,” said Councilmember Tammy Morales. “We know that entry to green spaces has an remarkable affect on enhancing mental health and fitness problems this sort of as despair and stress. I am honored to present this Proclamation as a recognition of their 50 yr anniversary and seem ahead to viewing this plan keep on to mature so absolutely everyone can have accessibility to communal areas to garden and gather as a local community.”
The P-Patch Neighborhood Gardening Plan, managed by the Seattle Section of Neighborhoods, is the greatest municipally managed group gardening system west of New York. Neighborhood gardeners increase food, bouquets, and herbs on 15 acres of land throughout the metropolis of Seattle and supply stewardship for an supplemental 35 acres. All P-Patch gardens are open up to the general public to take pleasure in and are utilized as restorative areas, finding out and strategy incubators, and venues for local community gatherings.
P-Patch Software Heritage
The P-Patch Community Gardening Program was officially started out in 1973, but the application grew out of a much larger movement targeted on rising food stuff for group and those in need. The name “P-Patch” commemorates the Picardo family members who operated a truck farm in the Wedgwood region in the early twentieth century. Darlyn Rundberg, a neighbor of the Picardos, was encouraged to commence a group back garden as component of the very first Earth Day celebration. She asked the spouse and children if she could use a corner of their residence as a local community backyard garden to improve food stuff for persons afflicted by the financial downturn. They agreed and, through the first two decades, Puget Buyers Co-op (now PCC Community Markets) managed the neighborhood backyard garden.
The experiment was so successful that the Picardos ultimately sold what was still left of their farm to the City of Seattle. With this, the P-Patch Community Gardening System was officially born, and the Picardo Farm grew to become the city’s to start with P-Patch in 1973.
P-Patch Method Currently
Above the previous 50 many years, the P-Patch Plan has developed to provide much more than 3,500 households in 91 gardens positioned in neighborhoods all over Seattle. Correct to its origins, the P-Patch plan proceeds to help lower-profits and historically underserved group members through priority placement, financial help, and providing packages. In recent years, Seattle Division of Neighborhoods staff have prioritized attaining racial fairness inside the system by dismantling the institutional racism and systemic boundaries that have prevented folks of color from completely participating in the plan. In 2022, the P-Patch Local community Gardening Program:
- Provided $66,152 in plot charge assistance to 858 reduced-cash flow gardeners.
- Welcomed 335 new Black, Indigenous and Persons of Coloration (BIPOC) and minimal-revenue gardeners through its precedence placement initiative, representing 46{a57a8b399caa4911091be19c47013a92763fdea5dcb0fe03ef6810df8f2f239d} of all new plot assignments.
- Served facilitate the donation of 44,403 lbs of organic generate to food programs and food stuff banking institutions across Seattle by its Offering Gardens application.
“An anniversary is a celebration of time passed together, but in truth of the matter, our passion for group gardening and its skill to foster wellbeing and wellbeing in our neighborhoods transcends time. The P-Patch Method thrives because of to the partnerships fostered amongst the City, community businesses like Grow and Seattle Housing Authority, and the gardeners themselves. Thank you to everybody who has joined us on this journey for the previous 50 yrs.” – Kenya Fredie, P-Patch Application Supervisor
P-Patch community gardeners, Metropolis staff, and method partners will be celebrating the program’s 50th anniversary in the course of the year with functions, tales, celebrations, advancement assignments, and more.
Learn extra about the P-Patch Community Gardening Method at: https://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/p-patch-gardening.
What P-Patch Method Partners Have to Say:
“The prospect to get exterior and back garden is very important to a whole lot of our citizens, and we make garden plots into our communities anywhere we are ready,” stated Seattle Housing Authority (SHA) Govt Director Rod Brandon. “We have a longstanding partnership with the Metropolis of Seattle’s P-Patch program to enable residents continue assorted cultural gardening traditions of escalating clean organic and natural create for their people and contributing to area food drives. In addition to healthful consuming and exercise, the gardens deliver constructive interactions between neighbors. SHA values our city’s P-Patch software and congratulates them on their 50th anniversary.”
“GROW started as a neighborhood advisory council for the P-Patch method and our group has grown and expanded our mission above the several years as a reflection of expansion and transform within just the plan,” claimed Develop President Kristin Parker. “The 50th Anniversary offers us the prospect to appear back again at all we have attained as a local community from setting up new gardens and preserving open spaces to producing a network of gardeners expanding fresh organic and natural generate for donation to our neighborhood foodstuff banking institutions and so considerably extra. It has been an astounding journey and we are enthusiastic to see what we can do jointly in our up coming 50 years.”