South Park, Seattle · A Neighborhood Experiment

Sowing
in Place Where do we
sow from here?

Funded by neighbors.
Grown by community members.
Harvested together.

Four projects, rooted in South Park, stewarded by trained and equipped neighbors — pulling community close at a time when fear and fascism would separate us from each other.

We have more resources than we have the capacity to recognize. We are all proximate to love, and a will to be together, at no cost but connection.

While we are excited about these seeds, it takes time to sow. Please stay tuned for updates. In the meantime, take a look at what we are cooking by exploring our website.
"Like Orca Whales in the Salish Sea — serving community through servant leadership, holding multiple roles, and when a shift is needed… recognizing the strength in intergenerational leadership. Nurturing growth and ownership in young community members."

The organizing spirit behind Sowing in Place

Freedom Schools Oral History Hot Meals Restorative Circles South Park Community Investment Intergenerational Leadership Sow from Here Freedom Schools Oral History Hot Meals Restorative Circles South Park Community Investment Intergenerational Leadership Sow from Here

Inspired by Restorative Peacemaking principles by Huayruro
and the organizing vision of the Combahee River Collective

Accountability
We name what has happened. We do not run from what is true. We stay in relationship even when it is hard.
Restorative Peacemaking · Huayruro
Interconnection
What happens to one of us happens to all of us. The harm done in one corner of the community reverberates into every other.
Restorative Peacemaking · Huayruro
Repair
We move toward healing, not punishment. The question is: what does it take to make things right and prevent future harm?
Restorative Peacemaking · Huayruro
Collective Liberation
We do not seek inclusion into a burning house. We are building something new — for all of us, by all of us.
Combahee River Collective · 1977
Radical Presence
Showing up consistently — for hot meals, for circles, for young people learning to fly — is itself a political act.
Combahee River Collective · 1977
Voice
Every person in the circle has a speaking piece. We practice not just hearing but truly listening, without interruption.
Restorative Peacemaking · Huayruro
Identity & History
We know where we come from. We document, archive, and pass on what our elders built — so it is never erased.
Combahee River Collective · 1977
Sufficiency
We already have enough — enough love, enough skill, enough proximity to resources. The work is recognition.
Sowing in Place · South Park

Four Roots, One Soil

The Projects
Being Sown Right Now

Project 01 · Education

Freedom Schools — Summer & Afternoon Enrichment

Rooted in the 1964 SNCC Freedom Schools of Mississippi — where young Black Mississippians were taught not just literacy but their own history, their own power, and their right to act.

This project carries that torch forward: joyful, culturally rooted learning for young people in South Park. Curriculum inspired by the Children's Defense Fund and created by Anab Nur.

Stewarded by Beth Girma & Tashi Cox

Project 02 · Memory

Oral History — Black Aviation, Construction & Maritime Workers

Every elder holds a library. This project is archiving the living memory of Black workers who built and flew and sailed in and around the Pacific Northwest — histories that institutional archives have long neglected.

Before those libraries close, we are listening. We are recording. We are preserving.

Community-stewarded Interviews ongoing · You can participate

Project 03 · Nourishment

Sow South Park — Weekly Hot Meals

$3,000 invested into South Park restaurants every single week. 150 hot, prepared meals served to neighbors who need them.

This is not charity — it is a circulation of resources that stays local, supports small Black and brown-owned businesses, and feeds the community that holds us all.

Community-stewarded Weekly · Every week · No exceptions

Project 04 · Healing

Restorative Practices Circles & History-Keeping

Circles facilitated by Tyra Edwards — trained in restorative peacemaking principles — for neighbors, young people, and organizers who need a space to repair relationship and reimagine accountability.

Tyra is also expanding the documentation and preservation of restorative practice work emerging among Collective Justice organizers across the region.

Stewarded by Tyra Edwards · Circle Keeper & Archivist
🐋

The Orcas of the Salish Sea do not specialize in one task.
They hunt together, teach together, grieve together.
When leadership is needed, it shifts. When a young one
is ready to lead, the pod makes room.

The organizers sowing these projects intend to operate the same way — holding multiple roles in life and community, serving through relationship rather than hierarchy, and nurturing the next generation of leaders until they are ready to take the front.

This is not a nonprofit. This is not a program. This is a neighborhood experiment, funded by neighbors, in direct service of the people who live here.

What We Already Have

We are all proximate
to more than we know.

🍽️ A neighbor with a restaurant Can they cook 20 meals? Can they receive $300 this week?
📖 An elder with a story What did they build? Where did they fly? What do they know that no archive holds?
A conflict that needs repair A circle can hold what a courtroom cannot. Tyra is ready.
A young person ready to lead Freedom Schools is where they practice. Show up and make room.
💵 A business in your network $50/month stays local, circulates, and feeds your neighbors.
🤝 Your consistent presence Showing up weekly is the rarest and most powerful resource of all.

Imagine what you can do
right now,
consistently,
in your sphere of influence.

You don't need permission. You don't need a nonprofit status or a grant cycle or a board of directors. You need a seed, a patch of ground, and the discipline to water it.

This is the experiment. Join us.

Have an idea to sow?

Download the Project Proposal Form