Tacoma Seed

HIlltop Urban Garden: For the short year 2021 we attained the following towards food security: Updated 4 garden beds and built 4 additional beds to increase food production. HUG provided mobile delivery of fresh produce to residents in an effort to combat food insecurity while maintaining social distancing to prevent the spread of COVID 19. Developed seed saving process to increase yield and reduce overhead. Accomplishments towards housing security: Partnered with community based organization to create shared housing program with wrap around services for individuals in transition. HUG recruited and engaged 12 volunteers. Built 4 new garden beds and placed 20 new 80 gallon gardening containers to increase food production. Introduced 22 community members to urban gardening and provided tours of crops explaining how to care for each type. Secured closed 3,800 sq ft storefront for programming eliminating the possibility of further gentrification as a neighborhood equity measure. Provided urban food sovereignty education to students at Evergreen College and partnered with the school to maintain their garden beds located in the parking lot. Accomplishments towards housing security: Partnered with community-based organization to create shared housing program with wrap around services for individuals in transition. Attended 2 community outreach sessions at Peace Lutheran Church and Life Christian Center to inform the community of HUG's urban gardening and land stewardship efforts to cultivate individual community donors and volunteers.

In 2022 Canoe Journey Herbalists moved our medicine garden and our office apothecary to a more permanent location where we have been able to expand our services and create more stability and sustainability for the project. This has allowed our gardens and apothecary to expand in size and service capacity and has provided a central home for folks to reach our services with more ease and regularity. In 2022 roughly 30 participants in our Indigenous Herbalist Pathway program received free official training and certification in Acudetox practices and roughly 50 participants received first aid wilderness training. Our services at Tahoma Indian Center expanded from once a month to one per week vastly expanding our services for houseless Indigenous populations in Pierce County. We also continued to host multiple seasonal harvests and gatherings and participated in our first small regional Canoe Journey since 2019 when Canoe Journeys were halted because of the pandemic.