Award-winning grant application: Evanston Community Garden

Evanston P-Patch Garden Redevelopment Planning The gardening community of North Seattle’s Evanston P-Patch would like financial help from the Seattle Department of Neighborhoods Small and Simple Grant program to hire a local landscape architect for the creation of actionable, construction-ready blueprints to redevelop this beloved 40-yearold community garden.

The garden is located on a Seattle City Light right-of-way at 604 N 101st St (Evanston Avenue N and N 102nd Street). Sitting on 11,600 square feet, the garden is officially classified as large and features plots ranging in size from 100 to 400 square feet to serve approximately 80 gardeners. At one time, the property was part of the interurban railway that linked Ballard, Fremont and other Seattle neighborhoods to places as far away as Everett and Bellingham.

Why do we want to do this?

The Evanston P-Patch was established in 1974, during the second year of Seattle’s P-Patch Program. After 40 years of use, the garden’s infrastructure is in need of extensive redesign and repair work: from the rotting garden-gate archways to the uneven non-ADA compliant paths, the cramped sheds to the aging and awkward plumbing, and the dilapidated boarder fencing to the decaying compost bins.

There is a lot of work to be done, and the previous list names just a few of the things the Evanston P-Patch gardening community would like help with. The project strives to keep the general layout of the garden’s plot structure to preserve its historic feel and minimize disruption to the garden community.

What will our project do and how will it benefit the broader community?

Today, the Evanston P-Patch supports a vibrant, diverse community practicing organic gardening methods and community service: for example, each year the Evanston gardeners collectively donate more than 1,000 pounds of fresh produce to the Greenwood food bank.

Improving the garden’s infrastructure promises to increase the community’s use of the garden for the benefit of important institutions, like the food bank, whether or not they work the soil there. It’s with this in mind that the Evanston gardeners want to make sure we address not only our decaying infrastructure to benefit the gardeners, but also address our inadequate commons area for all who want to enjoy the garden: presently, our commons area is just a ramshackle collection of broke-down, secondhand tables and chairs.

We know the garden is an urban oasis for everyone in the Greenwood and Broadview neighborhoods who want to open the gate and walk its verdant paths, and we want to improve how we welcome these neighbors and friends.

Provide a detailed work plan of the step-by-step activities of our project: Evanston P-Patch redevelopment project timeline: January 2015May 2015 (20 weeks): 1) The grant project manager (Erik Hansen) submits the application documentation into the city’s web grants portal in time for the October 6, 2014 deadline.

2) If awarded, the grant committee informs garden community of the search for a landscape architect and simultaneously solicits more input from the garden community about changes and improvements they’d like to see at Evanston.

3) Choose a landscape architect with guidance from a smaller grant committee composed of Evanston Gardeners with input from the first general meeting of the Evanston gardeners.

4) The grant committee works with our fiscal sponsor, GROW, the landscape architect, and our Department of Neighborhood contacts to institute the project management deadlines that will result in the creation of actionable blueprints to redevelop the Evanston P-Patch.

5) Help the landscape architect design a comprehensive plan to redevelop and improve the 40-year-old Evanston P-Patch: 3 general garden community meetings held at a donated, to-bedetermined meeting space in the Greenwood neighborhood (2 hours each for 80 people=480 volunteer hours): All Evanston P-Patch Gardeners a) First meeting, January: introduce the grant, gather input on the garden’s needs, and lay out timeline for the project b) Second meeting, March: review the grant bids and choose a landscape architect; gather final input on the garden’s needs c) Third meeting, May: presentation of the redevelopment plans by the chosen landscape architect 6 grant committee meetings (2 hours each for 5 people=60 volunteer hours): Evanston P-Patch grant committee a) First grant committee meeting, January: final bid preparation b) Second and third grant committee meetings; February, March: review bids and settle on a landscape architect c) Fourth grant committee meeting, March: meet with landscape architect and establish a work schedule d) Fifth grant committee meeting, April: mid-project status report by the landscape architect e) Sixth grant committee meeting, May: presentation of the final blueprints by the landscape architect to the general Evanston P-Patch community 20 Weekly project progress meetings (1 hour each for one person=20 volunteer hours): Weekly project progress meeting Erik Hansen; garden grant committee Erik Hansen; garden grant committee; landscape architect a) Meetings 1-20, from January-April 2015: held every week between the garden grant project manager (Erik Hansen), the grant committee

members, and the landscape architect (after they’re selected) with meeting notes provided to the grant committee and the general garden community.

The agenda for these meetings will include: 1) Receive progress updates from the landscape architect and/or the grant committee 2) Note any requests from the landscape architect for volunteer resources (e.g. garden tours, collaboration with garden community artists, garden infrastructure experts, ADA expert evaluation, etc.)

3) Send meeting notes to the garden committee and our fiscal sponsor, GROW 4) Communicate the landscape architect’s resource needs to the Evanston P-Patch gardeners who’ve specifically volunteered their time for the redevelopment project.

Identify all of the volunteer opportunities in our project 1) Garden grant project management (Erik Hansen, Logic 20/20 volunteer and Evanston gardener): 48 hours 2) Website development (Erik Hansen, Logic 20/20 volunteer and Evanston gardener): 30 hours 3) Garden meeting participation to help guide redevelopment plans: 560 hours 4) Resource support and consulting for landscape architect (e.g. artwork design, garden tours, garden history, site photography, etc.) = 20 hours 5) Community outreach and public relations work (social media work to improve project visibility): 30 hours 6) Grant preparation: 10 hours, max (Erik Hansen and the grant committee exceeded this number by spring of 2014) 7) Grant book keeping: 6 hours 8) Event space donation: 6 hours, 80 people 9) Food and drink donations for meetings: for 80 people Our specific outcomes will be:

1) Rally the Evanston P-Patch gardening community and the Greenwood and Broadview neighborhoods to the cause of redeveloping our beloved site through a series of well-planned meetings: 29 meetings are planned over a five-month period, from January to May. 2) Receive actionable blueprints for the garden’s redevelopment that will recreate our space to better serve future gardeners and community members for generations to come.

Success will be measured the following way: 1) Winning the grant.

2) Getting the gardening community to work together to come up with a comprehensive list of desired improvements and then hire a landscape architect to gather all the feedback and create a redevelopment plan.

3) Creating weekly, project management documentation for the gardening community, our fiscal sponsor, and our Department of Neighborhood’s project manager via email reports and typical spreadsheet-driven project management tracking reports during the JanuaryMay 2015 lifespan of the Evanston P-Patch Garden Redevelopment Planning project 4) Holding regularly scheduled meetings with the gardening community to support and monitor the landscape architect’s work: 5) Receive actionable blueprints from the landscape architect to redevelop the Evanston P-Patch Community Garden.

Provide a detailed project budget We are asking for $23,000 to $25,000 for landscape architect services to develop actionable blueprints we can use to redevelop the Evanston P-Patch.

This cost estimate was created after consulting with Seattle landscape architect Karen Kiest as well as with the Seattle Department of Neighborhood’s Evanston P-Patch liaison Kenya Fredie.

Evanston P-Patch fiscal sponsor contact information: P-Patch Trust/GROW www.ppatchtrust.org PO Box 19748 Seattle, WA 98109 425-329-1601 Lance LaRowe llarowe@comcast.net Evanston P-Patch redevelopment grant committee contact information: Erik Hansen 206-316-0199 erikrhansen@yahoo.com Carol Cooper carol.cooper10@gmail.com Rebecca Dowding gnidwod@gmail.com Anne Frances Kelly annefranceskelly@gmail.com Denita Leski denitaleski@yahoo.com