Community Projects

We have been so lucky to work alongside many Seattle organizations and volunteers to create beautiful, functional, and sustainable landscapes which foster and engage our communities in the region. We love to help get folks excited about getting connected to their food and to the natural processes at work around us. Below, we've highlighted some of our favorite community projects we have contributed to, which show the diversity of services we can offer your group.

Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary Rain Garden: An educational rain garden installation at the South Seattle elementary school. Students were involved in design and plant selections. Classes can now be held outside to learn about the plant and water processes at work around us at home in Seattle!

Highline United Methodist Church: Stone Soup Gardens has been collaborating with Highline UMC in Burien, along with several organizations and many volunteers in the community, to install a community farm as well as several rain gardens at this site. We worked with the Tilth Alliance Soil and Water Stewards as well as the King Conservation District to design and install 30 raised vegetable beds at this site and then fill them using Hugelkultur, a technique which uses decaying wood and other composted plant material to create a raised mound. Many volunteers from the community joined us, the organizations above, and Nature Stewards in the construction of the beds and the rain garden installations. This site has helped to improve stormwater mitigation in the neighborhood, and has provided opportunities for neighborhood residents to access food resources and interact with their community. As a next step to this process, we will be installing cisterns to harvest rainwater and help irrigate the community garden.

Paradise Parking Plots: Paradise Parking Plots is hosted at Hillside Church in Kent and is a project with World Relief Seattle. The goal is to transform 2 acres of parking lot into a community farm for the surrounding refugee population which will become a hub for community building through food. Designed by Stone Soup Gardens, Paradise Parking Plots will be a powerful demonstration home to the first raingardens in Kent, will capture part of a 30,000 square foot roof into large cisterns, and will help to turn a natural spring into a habitat pond. (The stream currently runs across the pavement and into a storm drain.)

Wetmore Community Garden: We worked with The Common Acre (formerly Alley Cat Acres) to design and install this urban farm space at the dead-end of Wetmore Ave S. This undeveloped right of way, owned by Seattle Department of Transportation, was primarily a huge overgrowth of invasive species including knotweed.

With the help of the Moore family (long time residents of the neighborhood) and a long list of volunteers, The Common Acre is creating an accessible entrance, garden beds, and a winding pathway through the space. We recruited community members from Senior Housing Assistance Group, Rainier Valley Food Bank, Homesight WA, and the Estelle Street P-patch to help design the space, and assisted in leading volunteers on an invasive species removal work party.

DIRT Corp and Carleton Grocery: Through evening classes and field experience, Stone Soup Gardens taught students how to design and install two cisterns, an arborduct, and a raingarden at Carleton Avenue Grocery in the Georgetown neighborhood.

Stone Soup Gardens, through a partnership with Urban Systems Design, DIRT Corp, King County Wastewater Management, and Seattle Public Utilities, provided an educational opportunity for DIRT Corp students, and the residents of Georgetown. The classes taught the critical importance of storm water management and its relationship to the Duwamish River.

Judkins Park P-Patch: Judkins P-Patch is a perfect example of what Stone Soup Gardens can provide for local, community-based organizations creating public spaces. We were approached by the Judkins Park Community Council and the Department of Neighborhoods to create an ADA accessible patio and raised beds, two urbanite retaining walls, and a lovely stone mosaic to welcome folks into the P-Patch.

For the design, we worked with the organizations to create a plan that was functional and cost-efficient. As part of the installation, we led a volunteer work party to install the ADA accessible garden plot. It was a great way to create engagement with the Judkins Park Community, while also developing quality public space.

Lakewood Seward Park Community Center: Lakewood Seward Park Community Center reached out to Stone Soup Gardens in order to take advantage of the RainWise Rebate Program through Seattle Public Utilities.

We were able to install two cisterns and an arborduct which will help manage stormwater runoff into Lake Washington, while helping cut down on costs of maintaining the landscaping by using the collected water during the summer months.