Saturday, October 1 was the official ground breaking of the Rainier Beach Urban Farm. The other FACN board members and I have been really busy over the past 8 months getting this neighborhood farm project off the ground- writing grant applications, negotiating operating agreements with Seattle Parks, and also figuring out the details of our relationship with Seattle Tilth, our fiscal sponsor. Although there have been work parties every Saturday for most of the summer and fall, this was really our first public event. The concept was a mini-version of the Seattle Tilth Harvest Festival, but with more of a focus on this particular farm. We envisioned farmers market style vendors, a plethora of community organizations, tours of the farm, live music, and plenty of kids activities. We had no idea how many people were going to show up, and whether the event would be a success, but we set attendance goals that we thought were reasonable, settled on a budget, then put our heads down and got to work.
My job was to recruit organizations to table, bands to play music, and farmers to sell produce. Other committee members handled a ton of other details, including speaker/ elected official recruitment, volunteer coordination, event promotion, poster/ graphic design, food/ flower procurement, event logistics and layout. A lot of these jobs were new to us, but we just kept plowing through to do lists and meetings, and pretty soon it was the week of the event. Saturday morning greeted us with rain, which fueled my anxiety that no one would show up. Like magic, however, over 40 volunteers materialized, and got to work setting up. By 10am people started trickling in, and for most of the day we had a good sized crowd there despite the weather.
