The Woolley Food Forest project, in partnership with the Helping Hands Food Bank in Sedro-Woolley, is helping to create community resilience and empowerment.

Simultaneously meeting the needs of Skagit people and ecosystem, the Helping Hands Food Bank (HHFB) is creating the Woolley Food Forest (WFF), a two acre tree-based garden.  It is being located next to their new Sedro-Woolley facility, with the goal of creating  a more resilient, healthy, and self-reliant community.  The WFF, an educational community food forest garden, demonstrates how to work with nature to grow an abundant, resilient, self-sustaining mini-ecosystem, requiring little input of labor and resources, supporting fruit and nut trees, shrubs and vines, edible and medicinal herbaceous perennials, and self-seeding annuals.  Additionally, the design includes a labyrinth, stage, and open learning space to host classes and events to help maintain and celebrate the energy, education and enthusiasm necessary for a thriving community garden. 
Enabling individuals to connect with place and one another, the Woolley Food Forest will nourish both mind and body, address isolation, and empower our community to share skills and food.  The WFF volunteer management program will train volunteers to properly maintain and harvest for the food bank, while keeping a portion for themselves.  Additionally, our program will improve livelihoods through job and self-reliance training in volunteer management, permaculture, agro-forestry, perennial gardening, food processing/preserving, and data collection.  Data collection volunteers will track inputs, yields, successes, and failures to prove the feasibility of perennial, tree-based agriculture.
The WFF project’s work and research in urban food production and environmental understanding will trigger systemic changes, empowering individuals and community to evolve from surviving to thriving. 

~Sarai Stevens
Woolley Food Forest Association Executive Director