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 Ave South and South Dakota. By the design of the project, and as the area is on public land, food in the edible forest section of the project will be available freely to those visiting the park. The project also has more traditional private allotments, similar to those in other local P-Patch gardens.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.GoalsBeacon Food Forest has several goals. One goal is to bring the Beacon Hill neighborhood, a richly diverse community, together in fostering a permaculture tree guild approach to urban farming and land stewardship. Another goal is to provide healthy affordable food to the surrounding community.BackgroundIn 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.
