Beacon Food Forest

The mission of Beacon Food Forest is built around three principles: to care for the earth, to care for the people, and to create a fair share for all. Beacon Food Forest began as shared vision with a small group of friends in 2009, and since then, thousands of volunteers have made BFF a reality: a public space for urban farming, open harvest, and connection to the earth and community!

Anyone can harvest the food we grow. This is your Food Forest!

The cost of living and food insecurity in Seattle continues to increase. Marginalized communities are disproportionately affected by these historically sharp increases. Beacon Food Forest provided over 1,750 pounds of food for our community in 2021. This includes over 400 pounds of food donated to Rainier Valley Food bank. We are encouraged to have put this much onto our neighbors’ tables during these challenging times.

Beacon Food Forest continues to grow as we enter out 11th year. We founded the BIPOC Community Garden in 2022 which is undergoing an expansion in 2023 thanks to community support. We have entered into partnerships with the Asian Counseling and Referral Service, Percussion Farms, local schools, businesses & community groups to support food and land access for BIPOC populations in Seattle. These groups will work with Beacon Food Forest to steward the land and grow food in a culturally relevant and impactful way.

Our challenges in these effort are site security, accessibility, and simply providing the tools to do this work. We need to fund on-site staff to assist visitors and volunteers. We still have significant work to do in making the forest ADA accessible. And of course, we are always grateful for supplies such as compost, plants, work gloves that fit volunteers of all sizes, and tools for folks of all abilities.

Your help is critical to the success of this effort. Your financial support is what makes it possible to provide a fair share of fresh, locally grown food for all. 

$30 buys gardening tools for one child to participate in growing the forest

$75 buys a high quality shed lock

$100 provides two hours of interpreter services for on-site education and events

$300 delivers a shipment of compost

$400 provides a full scholarship for a youth student to attend a week-long workshop.