Update as of the first week in May: It has become clear to us that we will not be able to stay at our current location long term. We have explored many alternative locations, including with the City of Burien, but none were able to accommodate us, sadly. Our current plan is to try to save and relocate some of our botanical display gardens and signage, so that they can continue to educate the community. Our other resources and plants will be distributed to like-minded gardens and organizations in our area as best we can. Please let us know if you have suggestions about that. We are starting to seek funding for moving as well as donated resources such as box trucks, an excavator, large nursery pots (1 ft or larger diameter), and a flat bed trailer to help move plants. We don’t have a final destination formalized, but we hope that many of our display gardens and programs can move to the Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden, if it fits with their goals. Updates to come.

April update: Community members who attended the committee meeting on March 30th reported back to us that there was no discussion about the community concerns about the garden and that the committee voted to approve the spending package as is. They also added an additional $100 million to that budget bringing the total to $615M to be recommended to the school board to go on a fall ballot for the public to vote on. That would be the largest amount ever asked for and it does not include funding for school operations, just construction and maintenance as we understand it. The district has been saying that rebuilding the Cascade Middle School on its current location would cost and extra $44M compared to building it at Salmon Creek, but then added the $100M to the budget. The district has offered us two alternate locations, but neither one would work. One is 57% smaller and would mean the end to the p-patch program for sure. The other does not work in terms of logistics and timing because it is where the middle school currently is. It would have to be totally removed and prepared before we could move there and that would mean that the new school would have already displaced us due to construction. The district also said they did not have funds to help us move, but might be able to loan us a truck to move plants. This is all deeply disappointing and it has been very difficult to explain to our volunteers and the families who grow food in our p-patch.

We are currently starting conversations with other organizations and gardens to see if there is somewhere we can move to that appreciates our work or at least can adopt our plants and resources for the community. So far that includes the Highline SeaTac Botanical Garden, the Des Moines Chamber of Commerce & Highline Community College, and some of the Burien city council members. There are two locations in Burien parks that could work (with enough strong partnerships), but we are only just now exploring those ideas. One would be the Annex Park just north of the skate park and the other would be Puget Sound Park just north of the Safeway on 128th, on 1st Avenue. Both have enough open sunny space for us and we could turn into a kind of Burien Botanical Garden & Education Center. If you like that idea, feel free to mention it to the city council members. :)