The volunteer group Vision Greenwood Park has just won a Seattle Parks and Recreation Denny Award for Outstanding Volunteer Stewardship.

The group has spent several years working to improve Greenwood Park. Their latest project is the new Community Garden, which is almost completed. VGP won the Community Stewardship Award.

“It is always difficult for us to choose winners,” Acting Superintendent Christopher Williams said in a press release. “All of our volunteers make valuable contributions for which we are deeply grateful. Our intention is to single out those who whose work builds community, inspires others, and improves lives.”

From the press release:

Vision Greenwood came together in 2008 with the idea to develop and expand Greenwood Park. Since that time, they have energetically pursued a vision of Greenwood Park that serves more of the community. In addition to putting in more than 1,000 hours of volunteer service, they have applied for and received more than $180,000 in grants; and have raised $18,000 through community fundraising and events. With the monies raised so far, they have designed and constructed a 40-plot P-Patch, and installed an art wall featuring sculptures along the street in a creative move that links the historical Interurban trolley line with the current bike route.

Winners will be recognized at an awards ceremony on Nov. 29. Congratulations to Vision Greenwood Park!

Members of the volunteer group Vision Greenwood Park have put in more than 1,000 hours of labor to create a Community Garden at Greenwood Park. They’re almost done, but they still need a little more money to finish building the raised garden beds and fill them with garden soil.

The site looked like this one year ago:

And now looks like this:

Photos courtesy of Vision Greenwood Park.

The support of neighbors has truly made this a community garden. We have stretched our grant funds with discounts from Dunn Lumber, Pacific Topsoil, and the Dirt Exchange, but we still need $2,200 more to build out the raised garden beds with additional soil and taller borders.

Please help us complete the community garden in time for late season planting this year.

Donations of any amount can be made securely on the Phinney Neighborhood Association website. Checks are also welcome and can be made out to Vision Greenwood Park and sent to PO Box 30105, Seattle, WA 98113. All donations are tax deductible.*

We thank you in advance for your support!

*The Phinney Neighborhood Association is a 501(c)3 organization and is the fiscal sponsor of VGP, which makes donations to the project tax deductible. The Federal Identification Number is 91-1112780.

Vision Greenwood Park volunteers have worked hard for years to transform Greenwood Park, 602 N. 87th St., into a safer, more welcoming park for everyone. The new Community Garden is almost done, but VGP needs about $2,000 more to finish the project.

Raised garden beds and wood chip path. Photos Jay Boynton.

From VGP member Cassandra Allen:

We have made significant progess building the raised beds. The accessible beds are complete! The rest of the beds though need one more level of boards – for which we are doing some additional fundraising. We hope to raise another $2,200 to be able to buy: the rest of the boards, soil for the beds and the remaining materials for the tool shed.

VGP and community volunteers have been working with local metal artist Kim Hall on the fence artwork that’s along Fremont Avenue. Several pieces are complete, but we will continue working on this through the fall to bring the theme of the evolution of Seattle transportation (spinning off of the Interurban’s route through Greenwood) to life.

If you’d like to donate to the project, visit the online donation page.

Volunteers at Greenwood Park have put in massive amounts of hours creating a new Community Garden in the northeast corner of the park. The work is nearly done, but more help is needed at a work party starting at 11 a.m. this Saturday.

Greenwood Park’s Community Garden as of today.

Volunteers with Vision Greenwood Park will install and stain the rest of the siding, roof and doors on the garden tool shed. They’ll also bring in another load of soil for the garden beds. And please bring a saw and cordless drill if you have one to help with cutting installing boards for the garden edges.

Greenwood Park is at 602 N. 87th St.

The volunteer group Vision Greenwood Park is hosting the 3rd annual Party in the Park from 12-4 p.m. on Sunday at Greenwood Park, (on North 87th Street between Fremont and Evanston avenues).

Bring a picnic and enjoy live music by Pickled Okra and The River Rust. Help celebrate the groundbreaking of the new Community Garden. Mayor Mike McGinn, who lives near the park, will be there at 1:30 p.m. for the official opening of the Community Garden.

VGP needs volunteers to show up an hour early to help set up tents and tables and post signage. If you can help, email visiongreenwood@gmail.com.

There’s also another work party for the Community Garden this Saturday, from 12-4 p.m., and from 10 a.m. – 2 p.m. Saturday, Aug. 20, and Sept. 10.

One project in Phinney Ridge and another in Greenwood were awarded money from the city’s Neighborhood Matching Fund 2011 Large Projects Fund.

The Phinney Neighborhood Center received $98,250 for a concrete stairway and a small community plaza carved out of the current parking lot. The project is part of the Phinney Center’s Capital Campaign to renovate the campus. The Phinney Center must provide a match of $162,103, which can be in the form of money or work hours from the community.

Phinney Neighborhood Center, 6532 Phinney Ave. N.

Volunteer group Vision Greenwood Park received $48,500 to construct a multi-sport courtyard in Greenwood Park. The court will provide recreation for older children, teens and adults. Vision Greenwood Park must provide a match of $48,500.

Once contractors are done working on the new Community Garden in Greenwood Park, volunteers will be needed at three work parties to build the raised garden beds, fill them with dirt and compost, and build a tool shed and compost bins.

• Saturday, August 13: 12-4pm
• Saturday, August 20: 10-2pm
• Saturday, September 10: 10-2pm

The contractors are grading the garden, building a concrete wall and fence plus benches, crushed gravel pathways, and stairs connecting the garden with the park. They are expected to be done by Aug. 11.

You can check the progress of the garden and work parties on Vision Greenwood Park’s Facebook page.

Vision Greenwood Park, the volunteer group spearheading the work, still needs about $1,000 to pay for all the garden materials. You can donate online.

Contractors have started grading the new community garden space at Greenwood Park, 602 N. 87th St. Workers will then build a concrete wall and fence, crushed gravel pathways, and benches.

This space on the east side of Greenwood Park will soon be a community garden.

The work is expected to be completed by Aug. 12, in time for the Third Annual Party in Greenwood Park on Sunday, Aug. 14, from 12-4 p.m. Mayor Mike McGinn, who lives just down the block from the park, will attend the garden’s ribbon cutting at 1:30 p.m. Pickled Okra and River Rust will play live music for the party.

Vision Greenwood Park, a volunteer group, will schedule more volunteer work parties to build the tool shed, compost bins, and raised garden beds. VGP is having a design workshop for the art pieces that will be attached to the garden fence at 7 p.m. next Wednesday, July 29, at 9528 Dayton Ave. N.

VGP is also soliciting donations to help pay for the garden materials. You can donate online or in person at the monthly Bingo Karaoke at the Greenwood Senior Center next Friday, July 29.

Volunteers with Vision Greenwood Park are inviting the community to help design and fabricate metal artwork that will be incorporated into a fence at Greenwood Park’s new Community Garden. Greenwood Park is at 602 N. 87th St.

VGP is working with local sculptor Kim David Hall, who is donating his time to the project. An initial design for the artwork has been created. The left side of the fence would include a bicycle, pinwheel, bus and sailboat, with mountains in the background.

The right side would include more bicycles and flowers.

The Fremont Avenue side of the garden will include a low concrete wall (to support raised garden beds) with a metal fence on top. We will attach metallic art pieces onto the fence and construct an archway entrance into the garden…The art pieces draw on the Interurban as a creative theme linking the historical trolley line with the current bike route.

This theme represents the Greenwood neighborhood and ties into other artistic and interpretive elements in the existing park.

Later in July and August, you can join Kim David Hall in his professional studio on South Lake Union on the metal work to fabricate the art pieces.

Community members are invited to a meeting from 7-8:30 p.m. Monday, at 9538 Dayton Ave., to finalize the design and draft full-scale sketches.

Please RSVP for the meeting to the VGP Steering Committee at Visiongreenwood@gmail.com.

Members of Vision Greenwood Park will be attaching donated birdhouses to posts in Greenwood Park’s northwest lot along Fremont Avenue on April 16.

From 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. that Saturday, volunteers also will have their first work party of the spring. They hope to finish clearing the site of the new Community Garden. Future work parties will focus on building a tool shed, compost bins and preparing the lot for the construction of more than 40 P-Patch plots later this spring.

If you’d like to help out, please bring work gloves, hedge clippers, hand saws, shovels, hammers, and a wheelbarrow and step ladder if you have them. For more information, or to let organizers know which tools you’ll be bringing, contact Cassandra Allen at 206-370-0360 or visiongreenwood@gmail.com.

Greenwood Park is located at 602 N. 87th St.

Vision Greenwood Park, a volunteer group that is working with the city and community to improve the park, is hosting its winter fundraiser from 2-5 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 27, at the Greenwood Senior Center, 525 N. 85th St.

Participants can listen to an urban bird talk and build a birdhouse to display either at the park or in their own yard.

Starting at 2 p.m., Mike Stringer, Chair of VGP, will update neighbors on the status of park improvements. Then, Sandra Woods will give a shot talk about urban birds, their habitat and the value of birds in our backyards and parks.

The birdhouse workshop starts at 3 p.m. VGP will supply basic building materials, but you can bring your own creative ideas and found objects to personalize your birdhouse. VGP organizers say this is a family-friendly project that includes hammering, drilling, gluing and painting.

The suggested donation is $25 per person to build one birdhouse, or $40 for a family to build two birdhouses.

Please RSVP to visiongreenwood@gmail.com to reserve a birdhouse.

Attendees are invited to hang their birdhouses in the soon-to-be constructed Greenwood Park Community Garden in the currently empty lot along Fremont Avenue. In the Fall of 2010 volunteers cleared the lot preparing it for development of 30-40 raised garden beds.

This Spring VGP will hold several volunteer work parties as well as hire contractors to build the new Greenwood Community Garden. Thanks to a matching grant from the City, the project is underway with construction documents being drawn up by local landscape architect Site Workshop. Birdhouses will decorate the Community Garden upon its completion this summer.

Volunteers continue to work on the new community garden at Greenwood Park. Vision Greenwood Park, a volunteer group, is organizing the work parties at the park, located between Fremont and Evanston avenues north of 87th Street. Dozens of volunteers at a  previous work party in September began clearing the brush.

From Vision Greenwood’s Cassandra Allen:

In between rain squalls, volunteers were guided by Joanna D’Asaro a fellow volunteer and local landscape architect from Greener Living Solutions. They constructed a fence frame that was then filled by the north lot’s cleared tree branches and shrubbery. Materials for the frame were provided by Dunn Lumber to the group at a discount. As the fence grew from the ground up, volunteers intertwined rhododendron, yew and cedar branches in layers giving it a lovely layering of green and brown. Joanna’s design of the twig fence provides a natural-looking, visual barrier with recycled materials.

“We came up with the concept of the twig fence with the hope of constructing something that will be esthetically pleasing, easy to maintain and easy to assemble. It met all those goals and brought the community together for four hours,” said Mike Stringer, Chair of the Vision Greenwood Park volunteer group, “We appreciate the local business and neighborhood support we’re receiving!”

Volunteers enjoyed pizza donated by Stacia’s Gourmet Pizza during a break while they discussed plans for building a shed for the garden in early 2011. The goal is to open the community garden to planting in the Spring. To volunteer, contribute and find out what’s happening at Greenwood Park, visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/visiongreenwoodpark/

Photo by Jay Boynton.