Working on the benches at the Hunter Tree Farm

The Gathering Place at Hunter Tree Farm was most recently used for the Wedgwood Community Picnic on September 17th.  This wonderful community resource is ours to use with permission of the Hunter family who own the lot for their annual Christmas tree sales.

Volunteers from the community, coordinated by Sustainable NE Seattle, work together to maintain the amenities at the Gathering Place, such as the benches.  Everyone who would like to gather for a Painting Party is asked to bring housepainting brushes and come on Thursday, September 29th, from 2 to 4 PM.  Bring water and snacks to share, too.

Update:  All of the benches got painted!  The benches will be left out for use through the month of October, then will be stored over the winter.

The benches at the Hunter Tree Farm site have been sanded, refurbished and repainted this year.

The Hunter Tree Farm at 7744 35th Ave NE in Wedgwood will be the site of a community gathering on Saturday, September 17th, with food trucks, music and info about Wedgwood Community Council.  If you are a business owner you are invited to have a table to promote your business — contact us at info@wedgwoodcc.org

Working on the benches

On Saturday, June 4, Sustainable NE Seattle began the every-summer clean-up at the Hunter Tree Farm to prepare the site for event use.  Work was begun on trimming the grass and pulling weeds at the site, plus repairing and repainting the movable benches.  If you couldn’t make it last Saturday, please do consider joining in on Tuesday evening, June 7 or Saturday morning, June 11, for more sanding and painting work.  Get to know these outstanding community volunteers and have fun working together.

On Sunday, June 12 from 1 to 3 PM Sustainable NE Seattle will host a Backyard Barter at the Hunter’s site, 7744 35th Ave NE.  Any homemade or homegrown items may be brought for exchange with other people.  Are your zucchini plants taking over your garden?  Bring some and exchange them for…a tomato start? a loaf of bread?  This is not a rummage sale but is only for items you have grown or made, and good deals will be available!

In other Sustainability news, new coordinators are in place at the NE Seattle Tool Library at 2415 NE 80th Street.  Mike is a long-time volunteer with a background in home construction and landscaping, tasks for which tools are often borrowed from the Tool Library.  Chris is a Wedgwood resident with an art studio in his home and he is known for his work with metal, including garden art pieces.  Both guys will be greeting you with a friendly smile and will be able to help you select the tools you need for your home project.  If you have not yet joined the Tool Library, now is the time!  You may sign up to borrow those items which you might only use occasionally, instead of purchasing items which will clutter up your garage during the rest of the year.

Birdhouse theme at the Gathering Place at Hunter Tree Farm

In the summer of 2011 the Wedgwood Community Council helped facilitate the creation of a unique, public-private partnership for a usable public event space at the Hunter Tree Farm, 7744 35th Ave NE.  The Gathering Place at Hunter Tree Farm added enhancements such as movable benches, without impairing Hunter’s use of the site for their annual Christmas Tree sales.

As part of our stewardship of the site, every Spring a clean-up is organized.  This year the Sustainable NE Seattle group which coordinates event scheduling at the Gathering Place, will make the clean-up day a teaching opportunity to share skills for the betterment of our community.  At the clean-up on June 4th, the Skills Mob day will begin with a quick class on basic carpentry to prepare everyone for the work of repairing the benches at the site.

Working on the benches

Clean-up will be held from 10 to 2 and will include clearing some of the overgrowth and repainting the decorative elements such as the poles.  Everyone is invited to come out to get to know others, learn skills and contribute to building community in Wedgwood.

UPDATE:  Not all of the painting could be finished on Saturday, June 4th, so two more work days have been scheduled:  Tuesday evening, June 7th at 7 PM and Saturday, June 11th at 10 AM.

Weed-whacking volunteer Tony Frego is a Wedgwood Community Council trustee.

Volunteers from the Wedgwood Community Council and OneLife Church contacted the City of Seattle for needed graffiti removal at Wedgwood’s Future Park, corner of NE 86th Street.  Then the volunteers held a work party on June 27th to create a Picnic Place.

On May 31st Wedgwood’s Scout Troop 166 cut back tree branches and shrubbery along the sidewalk on 35th Ave NE from NE 80th to 81st, including the plantings around the Gateposts of Wedgwood.

The most recent clean-up work was coordinated by Sustainable NE Seattle at the Gathering Place at the Hunter Tree Farm, 7744 35th Ave NE, on July 9th, 2015.  This site was first created in 2011 with permission from the Hunter family, to make a usable space for summer activities.

The Gathering Place site can be reserved for birthday parties, summer picnics, etc. by registering with the SusNE site coordinators.  The next public event to be held at the Gathering Place will be Wedgwood Community Council’s Outdoor Cinema on July 25, 2015.

Our thanks to Brooke Richardson for these July 9th work party photos, and thanks to the volunteers of Sustainable NE Seattle and the Wedgwood Community Council.

Grass-cutting and stage repair was done by volunteers at a work party for The Gathering Place at Hunter Tree Farm on July 9, 2015.

The Gathering Place at Hunter Tree Farm was created by a grant-funded project in 2011.

The Hunter Tree Farm Gathering Place (HFGP) at 7744 35th Ave NE is a usable public space created in cooperation with the site owners, the Hunter family.  The HFGP needs its summer sprucing up!  Make your summer a time of practical action at  the work party at Hunter’s on Thursday evening, July 9th, from 6:30 to 9 PM.

We will meet to weed, mow, fix, and the likes, to get the HFGP ready to be used for the community’s summer events, like the Wedgwood Outdoor Cinema coming up on July 25th.

Bring your work gloves and any tools you might use for yard work.  Building skills are sought for stage repair.

The work party will be hosted by Sustainable Northeast Seattle.  Take a look at the other Summer of Practical Action events such as a Rainwise workshop and a night of Wedgwood Meaningful Movies.

Tuesday, August 12, 2014 from 5:30 to 8:30 PM will be a community picnic and festival at the Gathering Place at Hunter Tree Farm, 7744 35th Ave NE next to the Wedgwood Post Office. Seattle Greendrinks is teaming up with Sustainable NE Seattle to bring even more hands-on fun to this third annual event.

The festivities at Outdoor Cinema 2014 will begin at 7:30 PM on Saturday, August 2, with live music, food vendors and kids activities.  Be sure to visit the Wedgwood Community Council membership table.  The movie is How to Train Your Dragon, and will begin as soon as it gets dark enough.

The Outdoor Cinema is not just for Wedgwoodians. It’s an opportunity for folks from the surrounding ‘hoods to come and enjoy the awesome Hunter Farm Gathering Space.

Here’s a handy list of a few close Wedgwood neighbors and how to get involved with the one representing you:

• Ravenna-Bryant Community Association
• View Ridge Community Council
• Hawthorne Hills Community Council

And if you live in Wedgwood, here is more info on how you can become a member of the Wedgwood Community Council.  See you on August 2nd!

In keeping with the ever-so-popular dragon lore of our time, we will be showing How to Train Your Dragon! Some of you will have already seen How to Train Your Dragon 2 by the time Cinema rolls around, so come on out to go back to the beginning, when young Hiccup befriends his first dragon.

Celebration Ceremony at The Gathering Place in September 2011.

Are you looking for a way to get to know more of your Wedgwood neighbors and contribute to the community with some volunteer work?  The perfect opportunity is coming up: on Saturday, June 28 from 9 to noon there will be a work party to cut the grass and do clean-up at The Gathering Place at Hunter Tree Farm, 7744 35th Ave NE next to the Wedgwood Post Office.

The Gathering Place is a unique outdoor venue which was created by grant funding and volunteer hours in 2011.  At the site, owned by Hunter Tree Farm, the Wedgwood community obtained permission to add improvements to make a usable outdoor event venue.  With the summer season of activities approaching, the oversight committee called Hunter Gatherers invites you to join in on the work party.  Bring snacks, beverages, work gloves, manual grass clippers and push mowers.

If you would like to use The Gathering Place for a family event, picnic, birthday party, etc. then access the Hosting an Event page.