12/04/2025
🌱 This growing season, Black Farmers Collective hosted monthly gatherings during YesFarm volunteer days to discuss and co-imagine possibilities for learning and stewarding together.
🌱 We invited Yesler Terrace residents, local farmers & community gardeners, volunteers, and all passionate about food sovereignty and collective liberation to join us at the end of the volunteer day to gather with intention.
🌱 To facilitate discussion, we offered the “DreamBox,” which we had available for folks to submit anonymous submissions answering the following major questions:
1. What do you want to see/learn/experience on the farm?
2a. If this is your first time at YesFarm, what brought you here?
2b. If this is not your first time at YesFarm, what brings you back to the space?
🌟 There is strong community demand for more programming and opportunities to learn from one another. Some ideas are as follows:
• CPR + Narcan + First Aid Training
• Workshops facilitated by trained local therapists and somatic practitioners
• Craft circles and opportunities to make/share art together
• Programming for and during the winter months
📝 In response to our second question which asked about community members’ experiences with YesFarm. To continue creating a space that is open and generative, we were curious about what brings folks to the space and what keeps bringing them back! We invite you, readers, to take a peek at some of the thoughts shared.
“I first came to the farm to learn how to grow my own food and learn more about the food system. But I continue coming to the farm for the community.”
“I keep coming back to YesFarm because I built strong Black community and I love putting my hands in dirt to heal.”
🌱 Given the feedback over the course of this growing season, it is clear that YesFarm is a space that brings together people who are invested in community-building and are curious about learning how to better steward our local environments together. In these uncertain times, holding space for reflection and collective imagining is essential and this is what we had set out to do knowing this work will be ongoing.
