At the corner of 25th Avenue South and South Walker Street in Seattle’s Rainier Valley is an entrance to a garden. A sign welcomes visitors to Green Plate Special. Another sign on the fence reads: “In this house we believe: Black Lives Matter, Women’s Rights are Human Rights, No Human is Illegal, Science is Real, Love is Love, Kindness is Everything”. This garden grows more than vegetables.
Through the gate, dozens of children come each week to get their hands dirty in Green Plate Special’s soil. In this garden, youth take part in every step of the food growing process from planting seeds and tending seedlings to harvesting and preparing new planting beds. This quarter-acre “playground” consists of 20 raised beds bursting forth with greens and carrots, trellises draped with tomatoes and cucumbers, a greenhouse, a hand-built chicken coop, and a Wood Stone pizza oven. A large wooden table basking in the shade of a walnut tree gives our guests a place to sit and connect over food, conversation, and games.
At the back of the property sits a low-rise building painted in the vibrant hues of marigolds and forget-me-nots. This building houses GPS’s teaching kitchen, where youth explore the cooking portion of their programs. It is a warm place lit by wall-to-wall windows, almost always smelling of fresh produce, herbs, and spices. The walls and ceiling are decorated with the many paintings and drawings of programs past, a large map often used to educate youth about regional foods adorning one wall. Colorful cutting boards, pots, pans, knives, measuring tools, and other kitchen essentials are carefully homed and labeled in drawers and along shelves that wrap around the room. In this space, GPS staff and youth turn the garden’s harvest into delicious and healthy meals which we eat together, like a family (taking leftovers home to their own families!).
On the corner of 25th Ave S and S. Walker, next to the 2100 Building
