Thanks for helping us win the grant contest!!!

Dear friends of the Magnuson Children's Garden,

Your vote helped Magnuson Community Garden rally in the vote count at the very end of the nationwide contest to squeak in at #5, and therefore win a $4000.00 grant from DeLoach Organic Vineyards and Organic Gardening Magazine!

Thanks to you, the Community Garden will be able to build disabled-access garden beds in the P-Patch and install educational signage throughout the site. This will create more opportunities for gardeners of all ages and abilities to grow their own food, and will make it easier for each and every visitor to the Community Garden to learn about the 6 distinctly different areas within it as they stroll though its trails and pathways!

Thanks so much for your support!

Please help us celebrate during our last few events of the summer:

August "Free Fridays in the Garden"
The Children's garden will host FREE, family-friendly gardening and nature exploration activities during the concert featuring Caspar Babypants!

• Friday Aug. 12th from 6-8pm
  

This event is co-hosted by Magnuson Community Center. Come dance, dig, and explore!



5th annual "Blues for Food Fest", a day-long benefit concert for the P-Patch Trust, who support local food banks, shelters, and hot meals programs. Free gardening fun for the whole family during the afternoon hours of the concert.

• Saturday September 3rd from 12noon-4pm.

United Way "Day of Caring" Bring your children to join volunteers in fall fun!

• Friday September 16th from 9am-12noon

Magnuson Community Garden 10th Anniversary Celebration and annual Jr. Nature Explorers Jamboree & Fall Harvest Celebration!

• Saturday October 1st from 11:30am-2:30pm FREE
  

A huge extravaganza, co-hosted by Magnuson Community Center and Magnuson Community Garden. Featuring a wide variety of fun for the whole family: orchard maze, pumpkin walk, cider press, scavenger hunts, prizes, Anniversary singalong, Himawari Project ceremony, Caspar Babypants concert, and much much more!


The Himawari Project
A wonderful international gardening event began this summer, called the Himawari Project. Himawari is the Japanese word for Sunflower, and besides being one of nature's most beautiful flowers, himawari have the amazing ability to absorb radioactive cesium from contaminated soil, thereby neutralizing its effects. Himawari Project volunteers have distributed hundreds of packages of sunflower seeds at events in Seattle earlier this summer, to be grown in gardens all over the Pacific Northwest. This fall, they will send the seeds collected from these sunflowers to the farmers of Northern Japan, to be planted in their fields next year to help heal the nuclear contaminated lands. Besides absorbing the cesium, the mature sunflower plants can be used to safely make biodeisel fuels. The Himawari Project sends a powerful message of caring, hope, and beauty to our friends in Japan who have suffered so much this year.

Growing a sunflower forest was already part of the Nature Explorers Program summer camp plans when we heard about the Himawari project, and a "Sunflower Forest" had already been planted by children in several locations on the garden hill. That "forest" has now been added to and lovingly tended by all Nature Explorers campers from preschoolers to 3rd graders who have learned about the Himawari Project as part of their camp activities. The seeds from our "forest" will be harvested by children and families who attend the October 1st celebration event at Magnuson Community Garden, and presented to representatives from the Himawari Project who will honor us with their attendance. You can harvest and donate your own homegrown sunflower seeds to the Himawari Project too! To contact the Himawari Project, visit http://artistsforjapan.blogspot.com

For more info on any Magnuson Children's Garden events listed above, email us at magnusonchildrensgarden@gmail.com