Sixteen Islanders gathered under sunny skies on Sunrise Ridge Saturday to prepare a garden for planting. They tilled, installed a deer fence and hung a sturdy gate.
But these volunteers weren’t planning a garden for themselves.
The produce from the beds will someday fill the plates of clients of the Island’s small food bank, which has served 55 first-time families as well as dozens of returning families since the beginning of the year.
Members of Vashon Island Rotary Club, shoppers at the Vashon Maury Community Food Bank and expert gardeners worked side-by-side to bring a longtime community dream to fruition: a garden just steps from the food bank that will feed fresh produce to some Islanders who may otherwise go without.
“It’s been a vision dream of ours for a really long time,” said Yvonne Pitrof, executive director of the food bank. “It just makes so much sense.”
The site of the garden, just north of the food bank, was an unused grassy area before this spring, when volunteer Herbie Beck took a Kobota tractor to the site and prepared it for its new purpose.
Today, the plot of land is on its way to becoming a community garden where farmers will teach others to garden, where Islanders without their own patch of land can “get their hands in the dirt,” Pitrof said. It will eventually help supplement the food stores of an oft-used public resource on the Island, one that has seen a drastic increase in its clientele since last fall.
“The numbers went through the roof in the fall,” Pitrof said, “between 32 and 35 percent. We’re continuing to see new families and new people every week.”
All ages were present on Saturday, from small children to retirees, and each helped however he could.
“Like so many things, it’s a community project, and all kinds of people are getting involved,” said Rotary president-elect Sam Collins as he shoveled mulch into a wheelbarrow on Saturday.
Beside him, Canyon Laine, 4, and his mother Sarah, carrying 18-month-old Story on her back, filled their own wheelbarrows from a large pile of mulch before trekking to the end of the garden and dumping the wood chips to be spread there.
“It was fun — the kids got to help out,” said Sarah Laine, an avid gardener.
She brought her family to help on Saturday, she said, “because I love the food bank. The ladies who work there … genuinely care about individuals’ needs.”
“Many hands make light work,” said Rotary president Dick Bianchi, who on Saturday was busy spreading the wood chips delivered by the Laines.
The idea became a reality after Vashon Rotary donated $1,400 and several Island businesses contributed materials free or at a discount, said Neil Jungemann, a Rotarian and food bank board member.
“Rotary likes to provide the seed money and the seed effort to get a project started,” he said. “Now, it’s going to be up to Yvonne and her volunteer staff to make this thing work.”
Pitrof seemed confident that the community will embrace the new plot of land, where all will be welcome to garden.
“There’s a lot of empowerment in being able to grow your own,” she said. “For me, the vision of a garden has always been a way to bring people together and feel good in so many ways. I dreamed of someday being able to create something at the food bank site that could draw people together.”
The food garden will serve as more than a community focal point, however, she said. While leading the Island’s food bank, she’s learned the importance of providing nutritious food there. In times past, the food bank was a source of emergency food. Today, some Islanders depend on it to feed them every week.
“We’re realizing now we’re not just emergency food — we’re a staple for a lot of people,” she said. “More and more, we’re realizing that nutrition’s really important to the well-being and quality of life to food bank patrons. And fresh produce is about the best you can get.”
