St. Christopher’s to Build a Community Food Bank Garden

St. Christopher’s Community Church has begun clearing land for a new community garden to grow produce for local families. You may already be aware that St. Christopher’s is an official satellite location of the Thurston County Food Bank. A site assessment was donated by South Sound Solar, who helped to find a good location on the St. Christopher property to situate the garden. Earlier this month, a work party convened to begin to clear the site for the garden.

The members of St. Christopher’s have stepped up to help bring this project to fruition and folks from outside the St. Christopher’s faith community are now coming forward to help, too. Can you help build this community garden?

You can help by:

Volunteering your time or expertise.

Making a donation of:

  • Building supplies
  • Deer fencing
  • Gardening tools and supplies
  • Seeds and/or starts

Or by making a financial donation.

Please contact the church office if you are interesting in digging in and joining this community-wide effort.

St. Christopher’s Community Church
7902 Steamboat Island Road NW
Olympia, WA 98502

By phone at 360-866-2111 or e-mail office@stchristopherolympia.org

St. Christopher’s Community Church is online at stchristopherolympia.org

The Griffin School Parent Teacher Organization, too, is planning a garden at the Griffin School. They have received approval from the school district, have identified a location, and even have received a grant to help fund the project. They plan to break ground and install garden beds in February. The garden will be used by teachers and students grades K-8 and some of the harvest will be donated to the Food Bank. Contact Elena Kuo-Harrison at harrisonkuo@msn.com for more information or to volunteer for the garden at the Griffin School.
 
 

Local Residents Working to Install a Little Free Library

Little Free Libraries come in lots of shapes and sizes.

What is a “Little Free Library”? In some parts of the world, it’s a movement to promote literacy and the love of reading. In practical terms, though, it’s a box, sheltered from the weather but open to the public, from which people can take or leave books. Free books. Folks are welcome to come anytime and peruse the books in the Little Free Library. They can take a book, they can leave a book.

Here on the Steamboat Peninsula, a few local residents have approached the Griffin Fire Department with a request to allow a Little Free Library to be placed at the Fire Department’s Headquarters. We hope to learn soon that the Fire Commissioners have approved a location. What we need now is the library itself. And some books to seed the library.

Organizers of this Little Free Library are seeking financial donations from our community to purchase the library box and the materials to mount it at the Fire Department HQ. Libraries of several different sizes are available and the size purchased for us would depend upon the amount of the contributions received. Contributions can be made online with a secure transaction through PayPal, using your credit card. Local resident Missy Watts is taking these donations to purchase the library box, since this is not a project of the Griffin Neighborhood Association. These are not tax-deductible donations (there is no officially-recognized non-profit organization set up for our local Little Free Library). Plus donations are subject to normal PayPal fees of 2.9% + 30¢ (for example, if you contribute $10, the Little Free Library will receive $9.41).

Once the library box is purchased, the fun part begins. What books would you like to recommend for the Little Free Library? Click here to leave your comments.
Are you interested in supporting installing a Little Free Library in our community, either by making a donation to purchase the box and the materials to mount it, or by donating a book or two?

Click here to learn more about the Little Free Library movement.