Clean Greens Farm

The Black Dollar Days Task Force recognizes that African-Americans are underrepresented in farming in Washington. Currently, there is no local market in King County that supplies the types of vegetables that are relevant to the African American and African immigrant food culture. Low income communities frequently do not have access to fresh, wholesome produce and have higher rates of poor diet related illnesses such as diabetes, high blood pressure, obesity, and elevated cholesterol.

The Task Force program Clean Greens Farm & Market operates as an agricultural producer engaged in the production of chemical-free collard, kale, mustard, turnip greens, relish and spinach. The goal of the Clean Greens & Market program is five-fold:

1. To identify and harvest vegetables requested by the community. Selling these vegetables in a market located in the Central Area that is affordable to all people, especially low income people.
2. Foster greater understanding and appreciation of local food, nutrition and health; This will help to lower the risk of high blood pressure high cholesterol and diabetes that is very common with African American.
3. Provide the Central Area residents with interest and/or experience in farming access to farm land, tools, mentors and resources;
4. Provide children opportunities to visit the farm, grow, harvest and learn about where food comes from, learn about ecological systems and water cycles and connect to the Earth which sustains us.
5. Provide farm job, training and apprentice opportunities to African-American and inner city residents.

To help achieve these goals, the Task Force has to date signed a 5 year lease on 23 acres of land in Duvall, eastern King County for use by the Clean Greens Project. The Task Force has presently invested over $50,000 of its own money in an attempt to secure a crop for Winter of 2008. In addition we have leased rental property on the land to accommodate farm workers. We are currently seeking funding to continue developing the land in order that we can have crops year round.

The members and supporters of the Task Force are confident in their movement to decrease social service dependency through the revitalization of our community. The Black Dollar Task is compelled to create projects to uphold it’s mission to design programs that foster community empowerment. The Clean Greens Farm & Market will do just that.

The farmers have begun planting and cultivating chemical-free produce on seven acres of the 23 acres of land in Duvall, Washington. Initially our intentions are to start on a small section of the land and then expand. We intend on this section of land to concentrate exclusively on greens, which we will sell to everyone, but primary for central area residents. Starting at the beginning seven acres will give our apprentices an opportunity to learn as they work without being overwhelmed by large amounts of produce, and land. In addition the land that we are presently leasing is land that has been used for pasturing, and must be turned over with a disk a few times before it will be ready to be prepared for tilling and planting. We have identified two community young men who will be our first apprentices, and our advisors are in the process of identifying someone who can serve as a farm mentor.

Advisory Board

In your neighborhood

The project will be guided by an advisory board consisting of local groups and organization associated with city, county and state agriculture, in addition to representatives from the Task Force.

Rev. Robert Jeffrey	Black Dollar Days-Exec Director	jeffreyrlj@aol.com
Lottie Cross	Bookkeeper & Market Manager	contact@blackdollar.org
Deasha Teague	Project Manager	deasha5@hotmail.com
Ken Evans	Farm Manager	evansfefe7@yahoo.com
Jeff Bottorff	Seattle U	bottorff@seattleu.edu
Harriet Stephenson	Seattle U	harriet@seattleu.edu
Karen Kinney	King County Ag Progarm	karen.kinney@kingcounty.gov
Todd Murray	WSU - King County Extension	todd.murray@kingcounty.gov
Deanna Burnett Keener	Green River Community College	DBurnett@greenriver.edu
Taalib Sankofa	Farm Apprentice
Julien Whitney	Farm Apprentice	jc.whitney@yahoo.com
Karinda Harris	Community Walk / Fundraising	karinda@msn.com
Jennifer Harrison-Cox	Partnership for Rural King County (PRKC)	jen@prkc.org
Geoff Reed	King Conservation District	geoff.reed@kingcd.org

Specific responsibilities of the Advisory Board include:

• Identifying professional and technical resources to assist the project;
• Identifying public and private grant opportunities and assisting with fundraising strategies to ensure project viability;
• Determining the success metrics for the project and helping to ensure that they are met.

Funding

The Cleans Green Project will be initially funded by a combination of grants and fundraising. Over the course of 5 years, the project will increasingly be able to pay more of its operating costs by building infrastructures, implementing efficiencies, retail sales of farm produce and possibly income generation through educational tours/use of farm sites. It is understood that Clean Greens Farm, even operating at peak efficiency with the best weather circumstances and crop yields will need to be subsidized with grant and fundraising monies in order to keep product affordable and assessable to low-income residents and provide maximum job and training opportunities to community members.

Our Needs:

1. We need everyone’s support to make this project work.
2. We need financial support. We need sponsors.
3. We need Farming equipments. Furniture for the farm house. Tents for the Market and a cash register.
4. We need volunteers – we have started a list. If you would like to be added to that list please contact us. The volunteers will be planting, weeding, harvesting, working in the market etc. when needed.
5. We need more partners. We have Seattle Tilt, Innerfaith Council of Washington and Interra.

 

For more information, please contact:

BDDTF/Clean Greens Project
116 21st Ave.
Seattle, WA 98122
206-323-0543
contact@blackdollar.org
CleanGreensFarm.com

or

Download our brochure here!

Buy Local Coalition Members

• Black Dollar Days Task Force
• Coop Fremont
• EcoPraxis
• Interra Community Alliance
• Madison Market
• Neighbornets
• Washington Cash

For more information, please contact:

Lottie Cross
COO, Black Dollar Task Force
Senior Editor, AABD

Office
116-21st Ave
Seattle, WA. 98122
(206) 271-0311
Fax: (206) 860-0782
contact@blackdollar.org