The Shark Garden was founded in the spring of 2015 by volunteers and the Community Advisory Board for New Start High School. New Start is a Highline District magnet school for at risk teens. The garden was originally set up to support the program Youth Works, which gives students an entry into the work force, skills training, as well as the opportunity for credit recovery. In the summer of 2015, nearly 30 high school students began construction on the garden, using almost entirely donated materials. The small budget available went to buying enriched garden soil for the new beds.  The students built a shed, compost bins, beds, and paths and then planted them with donated fruit trees, vegetables, and flowers.  By the season’s end the garden had produced enough vegetables to donate over 100 pounds of food to the White Center Food Bank. With the help of tireless volunteers, donors, and summer program staff, the garden sprang to life.

Volunteers and students then added a larger storage shed, dozens of raised beds, a stage, an access road, a main gate, and P-patch plots with the help of generous donations by NAIOP and others.  The orchard was expanded with over 20 additional fruit trees and we added a hummingbird garden and an area for edible flowers in 2016.

Our third season (2017) brought lots of exciting changes. We became a 501c3 nonprofit under the fiscal sponsorship of the Weed Warriors’ Nature Stewards program and we formed a board to manage the garden. We began our p-patches program and more volunteers started to support the garden. Our Volunteer of the Year, Carol, served an amazing 400 hours in the Shark Garden planting and harvesting veggies for the students and food bank.  Two local Boy Scout troops helped us plant more fruit trees, mark the p-patches, and install the irrigation system, which now covers most of the site with hose bibs for the gardeners. In total, volunteers served over 5,600 hours during the year! Their tireless work helped us greatly increase the amount of produce that we donated to the community. 

Over 1,300 pounds of food was donated to White Center Food Band, in 2017, and another 600 pounds went to students, staff, volunteers, and neighbors. Our growing relationship with the White Center Food Bank lead to the creation of a food pantry for students at the New Start High School campus.  It was great to see how our support network was growing!  Donors continued to support us as we grew and, of course, our board members have all donated time and resources to grow the garden.   Materials donations for the year were valued at over $6,000. 

The Shark Garden grew by leaps and bounds in 2018!  Large scale planting projects added over 300 new plants, bushes, and trees. All 60 of our garden plots were put to good use growing fresh produce and flowers for the community. Volunteers and students spent over 4,400 hours in the garden with a value of $132,656. Donation of plants and materials to the garden reached an all time high of $15,876.84 and cash donations were $940.  A grant for $10,000 from the Port of Seattle helped us expand our positive impact on the environment and the community. The value of carbon sequestration from our new trees alone is $90,440.00 (according to the Port of Seattle’s tree calculator). Our new pollinator beds are a sight to see in summer, bursting with colorful flowers. We also added a Fig Forest, a new berry patch, a Native Plants Garden, an additional rain garden, and our pollinator pathway beds.

We donated 1,937 pounds of fresh produce to the White Center Food Bank and another 700 to students, volunteers, and neighbors in 2018. Our summer program students improved their attendance, earned an income and math credit, and learned about nutrition and gardening. They also learned about community by volunteering at the food bank. New friends and donors expanded our reach into our community, as well.

In 2019 we continued to build out the garden with a new Dr. Seuss Garden, a kiwi trellis, and more new p-patch plots. A second grant from the Port of Seattle supported these projects and our ongoing summer program for the students. Their attendance improved to a record 92% during this year! We also started work on adding interpretive signs to the garden for the public and students to learn more about our features.

In 2020, we are added a new Herb & Tea Garden with funding from a King Conservation District grant. This grant included equipment to help dry and package our new herbs and staff time to help students learn about herbs and safe food handling. New curriculum was developed with this grant to teach students about food safety, cooking, food justice, preserving food, and more. We also installed a new outdoor sink area for volunteers to use while preparing our harvest for donation to the White Center Food Bank. We donated 2,347 pounds of organic produce in 2020. We added a new Latin Americas Food Garden area with the generous support of sponsor Wanderlust Nursery. It showcases over 20 food plants from the Americas. A new cut flower garden was added to provided flowers for teachers and student graduation bouquets. A new “Thorny Thicket” was planted in 2020, including 24 more types of berries for people to learn about. These new projects were all possible with the support of local businesses and community members who wanted to get involved during a difficult year dealing with COVID-19.

In 2021, we continued our support for the community by engaging volunteers in the garden. We grew over a ton of organic produce for food bank and added new features to the garden. A new propagation bed helped us work towards future plant sales, a new kiwi arbor added varieties to our collection and shade for our volunteers, and we installed a new greenhouse to contain our future agricultural robotics program. Our summer program resumed (after COVID) and the students added a Permaculture bed and a new sculpture to the garden. Our partnership with Burien Arts also helped us install 80 pieces of original art along our garden fences and we had a great fall open house to celebrate it with food, music, and more.

In early 2022, we undertook a strategic planning process and we are making a big shift towards offering more programming and classes for the public. We are seeking new partners and new sources of income, including from our first plant sales. Join us!

For more details (and photos) on all of our achievements, check out our annual reports in the About section here on the website. If you’d like to get involved or support the garden in some way, please contact us! Info@sharkgarden.org. Follow along with our progress on Facebook and Instagram.