Kathy Becklin, Grow Some Good’s first Executive Director, has done a tremendous job managing the organization and helping it move forward in critical areas of fundraising, curriculum development, and garden management. Now, as Grow Some Good enters its tenth year of providing school gardens, she shares why she’s stepping down.
As Kathy explains, she’s not going anywhere! She will still be active as a volunteer and serve as Treasurer on the Grow Some Good Board of Directors.
Hello Kathy Becklin,
Congratulations on all your successes with Grow Some Good. What an outstanding program! We learned about Grow Some Good via my cousin’s daughter, Malia Bohlin. Sue and I have coordinated the Children’s Garden at the Picardo Farm P-Patch in Seattle since 2012 and have some idea of the all consuming nature of the effort it takes to begin and manage such an endeavor. Like your garage, our garage has also taken on a life much dedicated to the Children’s Garden. Your garage comment made me chuckle. Our program is not a school-related program like Grow Some Good which has 10 schools and many supporting community entities which is a wonderful concept and certainly fits with the Aloha spirit of Maui.
On Sept. 16th we celebrated the 45th anniversary of the establishment of Seattle’s P-Patch Program. This was the start of community gardens in America and it started, as you can see from these following articles, by an idea of a student that brought together the owner of a vacated farm near us and our very own Wedgwood Elementary School kids. Seattle now has 90 such P-Patches and we are getting visitors from all over the place to see how we run it. In the last two years, for instance, we’ve had 4 visiting groups from Korea, one group from Taiwan, visitors from Kansas State, and the University of Perugia in Italy.
http://www.northeastseattle.org/p-in-p-patch/
http://www.seattle.gov/neighborhoods/programs-and-services/p-patch-community-gardening/about-the-p-patch-program/history https://www.facebook.com/picardofarm/
Here is a little video I put together about the Children’s Garden
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khcmMAsQKBs
Like you, we have thoroughly enjoyed helping children and families learn about growing food. But, as is implicit in your Grow Some Good name, it is really all about growing children, families, friendships, and community (the motto we use at the Children’s Garden).
Keep up the good work!
Mahalo,
John and Sue Olson