Beacon Food Forest
Beacon Food Forest is a 7-acre food forest in development adjacent to Jefferson Park on Beacon Hill in Seattle, Washington in the vicinity of 15th Avenue South and South Dakota Street. As the area sits on land owned by Seattle Public Utilities, it is believed to be the largest food forest on public land in the United States. Background. In 2009, an early version of the project, then known as Jefferson Park Food Forest, was presented at OmCulture in Wallingford, Seattle by a design team of four students as a Permaculture Design Course (PDC) final project . The initiative was led by Jacqueline Cramer, a Seattle landscape designer and activist, and Glenn Herlihy, a member of the Jefferson Park Alliance, who was already involved in the community design and outreach process involved with the $8 million Pro-Parks Levy for the reconstruction of Jefferson Park. That course was primarily taught by Marisha Auerbach, Kelda Miller and Jenny Pell with several prominent guest speakers from the local permaculture and raw vegan community. Classes were held at the Raw Vegan Source/New Earth Permaculture Farm in Redmond, at Seattle Tilth at the Home of the Good Shepherd as  well as other workshop locations in 2009. Shortly thereafter, the project gained support by the Jefferson Park Alliance and moved toward its planning and development phase. Heidi Cramer, and Daniel Lorenz Johnson, were also members of the original PDC class design team, A new group, named Friends of Beacon Food Forest, emerged in 2011 during the public outreach phase of the project. Government process. In 2010, a $20,000 City of Seattle Department of Neighborhoods Small and Simple Neighborhood Matching Fund (NMF) grant was provided to hire a design team to come up with a design based on input from  three public design workshops. In December 2011 the project received $100,000 from the Department of Neighborhoods to begin phase one of the food forest plan. Outreach. The group began an extensive outreach campaign to garner support from the community and the City of Seattle. The effort was relatively successful, garnering significant responses from local permaculturalists as well as others involved in community gardener and ecologically conscious groups. Publicity. The project was covered by the Associated Press, National Public Radio and had a significant place in the monologue of "The Late Late Show with Craig Ferguson", who joked that "in  downtown LA they are talking about building a forest like this one in Seattle but instead of looking for berries its kinda like a petting zoo, you get to hand feed Kardashians".