The Giving Garden, located on Marra Organic Farm exists solely as a means to provide fresh and healthful produce to the South Park community and is run by Lettuce Link, a program of Solid Ground. Lettuce Link was created to distribute organic produce, seeds and plant starts to low-income families in Seattle. Each year the Giving Garden, as part of this program, puts up about 6.5 tons of food, all of which is designated to local food banks and the children who help on the farm. The person responsible for all of this? Sue McGann.

“I’m a gardener” she says simply when I met up with her recently in the Giving Garden located on the oldest piece of agricultural land remaining in the city. At the time, she was handing over some seedlings to a neighbor of the garden. “He comes over for plants” she noted, and he smiled as he walked through the chards and lettuces to his house nearby.

Sue runs the children’s program, coordinates volunteer efforts and work parties and in general is an advocate of fresh, organic foods. Her bumper sticker reads ‘If you’re not furious, you’re not paying attention’.

She runs a tight ship in the garden, keeping notes, connecting people and creating a welcoming community. In addition to operating the Giving Garden, she has taken on the unassigned role of garden coordinator for Marra Farm, working directly with all five groups that currently grow there. Marra Organic Farm is home to a handful of garden programs – Seattle Youth and Garden Works, Seattle P-Patch Program, Mien Community Garden and Lettuce Link.

Sue and her family moved to Seattle from Okanogan County twenty five years ago. Arriving in Seattle, she found herself a little bit culture shocked and floundered to find footing for her and her family. “We were dirt poor”, she says, lamenting her husband's position as a student at University of Washington. Sue had always kept a vegetable garden, starting as a teenager on the east coast, but in Seattle she had a very small plot and it wasn’t enough to feed the family.

She leaned on the city’s programs and used her local food bank. Her first time there was disappointing, to say the least. “I was appalled. They had potatoes, white bread and canned goods – nothing fresh or nutritious.” She left inspired to do something and started bringing some of her home garden's extra veggies to the food bank, freshly harvested. She was giving to the program any extra she had grown and taking what she needed – a fair trade by anyone’s standard.

Later, when her family moved to a much larger lot in the city, she committed to keeping a garden in her backyard and growing food expressly for the food bank. “I know what it is like (to not have food)”, she said “And ever since, I’ve had a food bank garden.”

It was seven years ago, when Sue and Lettuce Link were connected. She met a fellow gardener involved in volunteering for the Seattle Tilth Edible Plant Sale, who told her all about Lettuce Link. The organization was in need of Spanish speakers, and Sue began volunteering her time, working directly with WIC clients hosting nutritional classes. After three years of volunteer-ship, a position for Farm Coordinator opened up with Lettuce Link. They needed a bilingual speaker to run the Giving Garden at Marra Farm.

That was four years ago and she hasn’t looked back. “I’m in heaven down here, and they pay me to do it” she said, leaning in to tell me as if saying it too loud would wake her up from her dream.

Sue is doing everything she loves at Marra Farm, but it’s not without the help and hard work of others. Both she and her director, Michelle Bates-Benetua, run the program at Lettuce Link. She also has weekly help in the Children’s Garden from local school children. Students from Concord Elementary’s second and third grade classes are given individual 2' x 2' plots to grow their own food. They kick off with a garden discussion to get them familiar with vegetable names and their vitamin-packed power. In class, they map out their planting plan and keep a garden log of their own. On the farm with Sue, they get seeds or starts and are responsible for tending their plot each week. One hour is spent on nutrition at school; one hour is spent in the garden getting their hands dirty with Sue and her volunteers at Marra Farm. This is the third year the Children’s Garden has been in bloom and it’s been a huge success.

Volunteers also help to make the Giving Garden grow. Forging partnerships early on with Bastyr University, the UW Master Gardeners Program and local learning centers has paid off. Often, volunteers crowd the field and things get hectic, but after a long day the work gets done well with the same groups coming back each year. Some companies send down crews of co-workers to volunteer each year. For the most part, volunteers are now often found via word of mouth and come down by the truck full, but Sue still has big hopes for the future of the farm.

“My biggest dream, and it’s harder than I thought, would be to turn the farm over to the community”, she said one afternoon recently after finishing up with a work party. Additionally (as most non profits are) Lettuce Link is under-funded and continues to have every kind of need. “Tools break. Gloves wear out,” she says. They are responsible for purchasing fertilizer, compost and supplies for the kids programs. In a garden, these costs come each year, meaning money is scarce. “What we need is enough money to staff some more people,” she says really tossing out big dreams now.

When I ask Sue what she thinks about being a ‘local hero’, her face turns red and she looks shocked. “Oh no! Now you tell me this?” she asked accusingly. As suspected, heroes typically don’t think of themselves as such. “Some kids call me Farmer Sue, so if they think I’m a hero, then…..that’s good by me” she said humbly. Yet to throngs of people in South Park she is a hero. A hero with big dreams and the determination to see them through.

Amy Pennington is a food writing, vegetable gardening, martini drinking, radio producing, food lovin’ all around green-conscious girl. Visit her website at gogogreengarden.com

To make a direct donation to the Giving Garden at Marra Farm, you may write a check to Lettuce Link Program for Marra Farm or visit solid-ground.org for more information.