We have some VERY exciting news for the South End!!!! SENCo was awarded a $171,000 DNR grant!
This project came together VERY quickly.
Here’s the long version! Last year, SENCo was invited to apply for the new Environmental Justice Pilot Program through the Washington Conservation Corps. A member of Friends of Blueberry Park had spoken to SENCo about their weekly volunteer cleanups of the blueberry fields, and how some areas had become impacted beyond their ability to keep up with it (they’ve been doing preservation work for decades! Blackberry is the worst!). We asked permission from Kevin Johnson (Community and Special Projects Coordinator) at Metroparks to apply for the Americorps work crew, and he agreed!
Fast forward to the Americorps crew’s first day, SENCo went to take a welcome basket and take the tour of the park with the crew. Kevin mentioned a passion project on his mind, which was expanding the gleaning potential of the park by adding an urban orchard in one area of the park. SENCo had just noticed that the DNR Urban Forestry Grant had added food forests and urban orchards to the funding guidelines, and asked if MetroParks would be willing to have SENCo write a grant to see if we might be able to get the funding for his project.
The deadline was only a few weeks away, so Kevin invited a team of interested community members, SENCo Board Members and Tacoma Food is Free to discuss urban orchards and permaculture. That discussion led to a plan, and Kevin and Mike and their team at MetroParks raced the idea through planning permissions ahead of the submission deadline. SENCo created the project scope document, and reached out to Harvest Pierce County and Pierce Conservation District, who run the community garden program at Blueberry Park, to get input on best practice methods for this type of installation.
Well, the rest, as they say, is history!
Congratulations, South End Neighbors – our neighborhood park is really getting some love and attention, and a host of community partners are pooling resources to create a wonderful new, year round, free public gleaning opportunity at Charlotte’s Blueberry Park! Questions? Email us! SENCo253@gmail.com
South End Neighborhood Council 