Seattle Community Farm Produces!

Farmer Scott with youth visiting from the
Horn of Africa Services summer program

This post originally appeared on the Rainier Valley Eats! blog. The Seattle Community Farm is one of several RaVE mini-grant recipients doing Grow, Share, Eat programming in the Rainier Valley neighborhood.

“We’ve produced almost 3,000 pounds of food this season and the heavy stuff is just starting to ripen” said Scott Behmer, head farmer, as he looked out across a field of lush crops.

Solid Ground’s Lettuce Link program coordinates the Seattle Community Farm - a creative, ambitious project that transformed an unused ½-acre of land into a productive farm which educates, inspires, and increases food security for residents of Southeast Seattle. The food grown at the Seattle Community Farm is cultivated by and shared with residents of the Rainier Vista community and wider Rainier Valley neighborhood, as well as the Rainier Valley Food Bank.

The Farm was started in 2009 from a partnership between Lettuce Link, Seattle Housing Authority and the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods P-Patch Community Gardening Program – with funding from a USDA Community Food Project Grant. Additional funding from RaVE purchased cooking supplies and books for the children’s program and helped with outreach for their work trade program.

“We just did a program with local children and it was the first they had tried some of the vegetables we are growing” said Scott “It was time to leave and we couldn’t get them to go home. They wanted more carrots!”

To learn more about the farm and how to volunteer, click here.