By IRIS SEGAL and ASHER GLICKMAN-FLORA
Special to the Daily Sitka Sentinel

Tucked away at the top of Jarvis Street, Joel Hanson and a crew of regular volunteers have been preparing a half-acre community garden for the spring 2026 growing season. It will consist of more than 40 20×10-foot plots which come February will be available to Sitka residents to lease for $55 annually. 

Hanson is project manager of the Sitka Community Garden, and his plans include a structure consisting of a bathroom, workshop and seating area powered by solar panels, an upgraded workshop/toolshed and a covered picnic table.

The garden will hold its inaugural meeting to formally introduce the project to the community at 3 p.m. Saturday, December 13, behind St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 611 Lincoln Street.

The journey to where the garden is now situated, on completely cleared and leveled muskeg, has been long in the making. The project took its first steps in 2020 when a group of Sitkans formed Transition Sitka. Some members of the original group were involved in the Sitka chapter of the Citizens Climate Lobby, who were interested in finding local projects to direct their sustainability efforts. Other founding members were just interested citizens, like Hanson. 

Hanson had a major role in the formation of the organization.

“It was an ad-hoc group,” he said. “We didn’t even have a name yet. It was a group of people who wanted to focus on local sustainability issues.”

Hanson helped start Transition Sitka because “working at a local level benefits us because large governments have their limits supporting local projects.” The name comes from the international Transition Town movement, whose goal is to make it accessible for citizens to “engage with the need for change.” 

Transition Sitka’s two priorities are to lower carbon dioxide emissions and increase the accessibility and the practice of food sovereignty. 

When Hanson took the idea of the garden to one of Transition Sitka’s weekly meetings, everyone was on board, but it was Barbara Bingham, the current outreach coordinator for the garden and an original member of Transition Sitka, who took a special interest in the garden and teamed up with Hanson to turn it into a reality. All of their ventures to address these issues are deeply rooted in the community, and “strengthening connections,” Bingham said.

Hanson also reached out to the Sitka Local Foods Network (SLFN), a local non-profit started in 2009 that focuses on food security and sustainability. 

“I thought that a separate, long-established organization involved as a partner alongside Transition Sitka would help in promoting and pursuing the idea of a community garden project,” Hanson said. The partnership complete, Hanson joined the SLFN board and now serves as treasurer.

Following this momentum, Hanson “was … trying to drum up local buy-in,” garnering letters of support from, among others, the Sitka Fire Department, City of Sitka Parks and Recreation Committee, Sitka Conservation Society, Sitka Homeless Coalition, and the city Sustainability Commission. 

Once they had this foundation of community support, Hanson and Bingham spent hours designing the garden and scouting out suitable public land, drawing large inspiration from other community gardens in Southeast Alaska, most notably the Juneau Community Garden. 

They like Juneau’s model “because it’s successful,” Bingham said. She and Hanson wanted a garden that would become a longstanding institution in Sitka, like Juneau’s garden has been since its founding 20 years ago.

After narrowing potential locations to two –  Osprey Street and Jarvis Street – Hanson began informally meeting with the city government, inquiring about the land’s availability. 

The city government also was looking to address citizen concerns about food security and accessibility. In 2022, they drafted a five-year strategic plan to create an outline and timeline to address these issues. The plan states that the government will “(convene) community partners to develop an action plan that will address the challenges of food security.” As they actively searched for solutions to the problem of food sustainability, the plan for the community garden became more poised to gain the legislative support it needed to begin work.

First, Hanson needed two Assembly members to endorse his project before submitting a detailed proposal to the Planning Commission. The proposal included a description of what the work on the garden would look like, who would be involved, what tasks would be completed and when, and what larger purpose the garden would have in the wider community.

In addition to getting city approval to begin work, they also needed clearance from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers because the west side of Jarvis Street is considered wetlands.

 It took nearly three years from his initial inquiries about the land to being awarded the lease in May.

Then, just two weeks after the city awarded them the Jarvis Street lease, Sitka Community Garden learned it had received a grant of $345,000 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through a non-profit called Philanthropy Northwest. Funded by the EPA, Philanthropy Northwest allocates money to projects like the community garden across the United States. 

This grant, along with sponsorships by local businesses (Seamart, Tongass Threads, Harry Race, Sitka Legacy Foundation and the White Elephant), greatly expedited the progress of the garden. With the money, they delegated the hardest work, such as clearing big trees, to the professionals.

But hiring professionals is atypical of Hanson. He prefers to be self-sufficient, spending the money on tools so that he and the people involved can build and maintain the garden themselves. Hanson even opted to build the fence around the garden, (something he has no experience with) instead of hiring the Southeast Fence Specialists to do it for him.

Hanson’s “do it ourselves” philosophy is seen in his hopes for the garden. He doesn’t want the plot owners to just sow their plots, but to play an active role in maintaining the garden.

“The hope is that the garden can become a sort of cooperative,” he said.

Hanson and Bingham aspire to create another non-profit, independent of SLFN and Transition Sitka, named Sitka Community Gardens. Although the association between SLFN and Transition Sitka will remain, at least in the beginning, the sole purpose of Sitka Community Gardens will be to both provide the framework that will allow plot holders to tend to the garden, and to create and plan for more community gardens in Sitka.

The garden will hold its inaugural meeting to formally introduce the project to the community at 3 p.m. on Saturday, Dec. 13, behind St. Peter’s Episcopal Church, 611 Lincoln Street.

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Asher Glickman-Flora and Iris Segal are students at Outer Coast in Sitka.

SITKA – Transition Sitka announced today that it has been selected by Philanthropy Northwest to receive a $345,000 grant through the Thriving Communities Program, funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The award will support the development of the Jarvis Street Community Garden, a project aimed at enhancing local food security, sustainable community resilience and cooperative civic engagement.

Since its founding in late 2021, Transition Sitka has sought to advance strategies that will help pave the way toward a more self-reliant future for the community. The nonprofit has led or partnered on several local initiatives including hosting several electrification expositions, launching the 2024 Sitka Community Food Assessment Indicators report and obtaining — in partnership with the Sitka Local Foods Network — a long-term land lease from the City and Borough of Sitka for the Jarvis Street Community Garden.

The grant comes via the EPA’s Environmental Justice Thriving Communities Grantmaking Program, administered regionally by Philanthropy Northwest. This program is part of the larger federal effort under the Inflation Reduction Act to ensure equitable access to environmental funding for under-resourced communities. Philanthropy Northwest is distributing more than $40 million across Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and tribal nations, aiming to award subgrants for assessment, planning, and project development.

Over the next two years, Transition Sitka’s grant will enable major improvements to be made to the garden site, including the building of a modest multipurpose structure incorporating under a single roof an open-sided shelter, an enclosed storage room and a restroom. Once complete, the garden will offer:

• A locally cultivated source of healthy produce, reducing reliance on imported goods.

• Opportunities for residents to engage in and learn more about organic gardening.


• A hub for promoting community health, connection, and resilience.

“We are deeply honored to receive this grant from Philanthropy Northwest,” said Barbara Bingham, President of Transition Sitka. “This funding ensures that we’ll be able to provide community members with a substantial number of gardening spaces by spring of next year, and hopefully have all spaces at the Jarvis Street Garden growing healthy food by spring of 2027.”

For more information, contact Project Manager Joel Hanson at 907-747-9834, or submit email inquiries to transitionsitka@gmail.com.

On Saturday, May 17, about 25 community members gathered for the official groundbreaking of Sitka’s new community garden — a major step forward in our food security and strategic plan efforts.

Located on city-owned land at the end of Jarvis Street that was leased through a Request for Proposals, the garden will feature 10×20-foot plots available by contract, with a set seasonal fee. As the site is developed, plans include a 6-foot bear-resistant fence with electric wire, solar power, and both walking and drive-in gates to help protect the garden from deer and bears.

Plots will be assigned this winter, and those who have already expressed interest will be contacted to confirm. A cooperative model will guide operations, with shared rules, work hours, and the option to build either mounded or raised beds. Priority is first come, first served.

This initiative is part of Sitka’s Strategic Plan and aligns with Goal #1.5: Continue to facilitate community partners to address the challenges of food security. It also reflects our commitment to following the plan, as it directly responds to the needs and desires expressed by our community.

We’re excited to see this project take root and grow — thanks to all who came out to celebrate.

Questions? Reach out to sitkacommunitygardens@gmail.com

#SitkaGrows#CommunityGarden#SitkaLife

Photos courtesy of Melissa Wileman

Join us at the garden site at the upper end of Jarvis Street, from 1-1:30 p.m. this Saturday, May 17, for our long-awaited groundbreaking celebration.

Aside from the satisfying sound of shovel striking dirt, we’ll have a pop-up tent housing a map of the garden with plot layouts, general information about garden membership, and a sign-up form for reserving your plot or confirming your interest if you’re already signed up.

Importantly, we also will be signing up volunteers to help with the initial construction phase of the garden, which will begin immediately. We expect to have three demonstration plots completed as soon as possible and planted for this summer’s growing season.

Member plots will be assigned next January or February for the full opening of the garden, spring of 2026. Initially, they’ll be assigned on a first come, first served basis, so don’t delay. Sign up on Saturday, or reply to this email with your name and contact information to be added to the list, or confirm your previous interest in a plot.

The online vendor registration page for the 2025 Sitka Farmers Market has gone live and potential vendors can register now for our summer of markets.

This summer, for its 18th season, the Sitka Local Foods Network is hosting six markets from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Saturdays — July 12, July 26, Aug. 9, Aug. 23, Sept. 6, and Sept. 20 — at Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall (235 Katlian Street), where we held 13 of our first 15 years of markets. This will be our 16th year at ANB out of 18 seasons.

One change this year is we no longer have half tables, and we’ve reduced the price of a full table to $35 per market (down from $40). We have a special rate of $175 for vendors who register for all six markets before the first market happens, which means you pay for five markets and get the sixth market free (it’s $210 if the six markets are not paid for before the first market). Vendors can register for one or two markets, or all six. We also have a youth vendor program for ages 14 and younger, which is $20 for all six markets (please let us know ahead of time which specific markets you plan to attend).

The Sitka Farmers Market is a community event hosted by the Sitka Local Foods Network, whose mission is to increase the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans. Our focus is on local — fresh produce, fish, baked goods, prepared foods, cottage foods, arts and crafts — and all products must be made in Alaska (preferably in Sitka or Southeast Alaska, cooked foods may use non-local foods so long as the food is cooked on site). Since our mission is geared toward food security and our space is limited this year, if we have too many vendors try to register our food booths will have a higher priority over arts and crafts.

After having to relocate for two years due to COVID-19, we returned to our ANB Hall roots in 2022 for our 15th season of markets. We have been back at ANB Hall again since the pandemic faded away. We will have indoor and outdoor spaces, but if we don’t have a lot of vendors we will move people inside.

Since COVID-19 is still around, we will encourage wearing masks inside the ANB Hall when Sitka is at the Moderate or High risk levels. While most people now are vaccinated against the coronavirus, there still are people who aren’t vaccinated and there are periodic hot spots when the illness flares up. We don’t want the market to be a place that spreads the coronavirus. Even with our outside booths, we encourage vendors and customers to wear masks, to use hand sanitizer, and to avoid bunching up while giving others six feet of space.

Please read the market vendor rules and responsibilities document linked below. All vendors using this site to register for the market will be held to these rules. We ask all vendors to register by the Thursday morning before the markets where they intend to sell. Unless you specify you want to be outside, we will try to find room for you indoors.

Vendors can pay using PayPal or credit/debit card. When you get to the Payment options, click PayPal (not Invoice) and it should give you the option of using a PayPal account or four different types of cards (Visa, MasterCard, AmEx, Discover). If you prefer to pay by cash or check, contact Charles Bingham at 907-623-7660.

We will provide a $30 refund for full-table and outside cancellations, but to get the refund you are required to let us know before Wednesday of the week of your registered market that you can’t make it. We are billed for transaction fees and other expenses, so the $5 covers those fees. There is no refund if you don’t let us know until after Wednesday.

Debe Brincefield is the Sitka Farmers Market manager this summer. Laura Schmidt is our lead gardener at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, where the Sitka Local Foods Network grows most of the produce it sells at the market. Charles Bingham is the assistant market manager and the president of the Sitka Local Foods Network.

For questions about the market, email us at sitkafarmersmarket@gmail.com or call (907) 623-7660 (Charles Bingham’s cell). More details about the market will be posted on the Sitka Local Foods Network website, http://www.sitkalocalfoodsnetwork.org, and shared on its Facebook pages — https://www.facebook.com/SitkaLocalFoodsNetwork and https://www.facebook.com/SitkaFarmersMarket — and on Twitter, https://www.twitter.com/SitkaLocalFoods.

• 2024 Sitka Farmers Market Vendor Rules and Responsibilities

All growers, entrepreneurs and local food enthusiasts are invited to gather, connect and share experiences of growing food in Sitka over a potluck dinner organized by the UAF Cooperative Extension Service. This event is at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, March 5, at the See House behind St. Peter’s By The Sea Episcopal Church.

Andrea Fraga of Middle Island Gardens and Laura Schmidt of St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm will share tidbits from the 2025 Southeast Farmers Summit, held Feb. 20-22 in Juneau.

For more information, email jdshaw2@alaska.edu or call 907-747-9440.

As 2024 draws to a close, many Alaskans already are thinking about applying for their 2024 Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend check in January. As usual, Alaskans can share their wealth with a variety of Alaska nonprofits, including the Sitka Local Foods Network, through the PFD’s Pick.Click.Give. program.

For the past several years, the Sitka Local Foods Network has participated in the Pick.Click.Give. program, which allows people to donate in $25 increments to their favorite statewide and local 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations when they file their PFD applications from Jan. 1 through March 31.

When you choose to donate part of your PFD to the Sitka Local Foods Network, you support the Sitka Farmers Market, St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, the Sitka Food Business Innovation Contest, education programs about growing and preserving food, the Sitka Kitch community rental commercial kitchen, Sitka Community Gardens, matching dollars at the Sitka Farmers Market for SNAP/WIC beneficiaries, the sustainable use of traditional foods, the Sitka Community Food Assessment, the Sitka Food Summit, and a variety of other projects designed to increase access to healthy local foods in Sitka. Starting in 2023, the Sitka Local Foods Network partnered with Transition Sitka on two food security projects — to update the decade-old data in the 2014 Sitka Community Food Assessment Indicators Report (recently released, see Documents section of website for link) and to build a new community garden at the top of Jarvis Street (recently approved by the Sitka Assembly).

In 2024, 40,095 Alaskans contributed $2.622 million to 614 Alaska nonprofit organizations, and more than $37.9 million has been donated since the program started in 2009. Some Alaskans choose to donate to just one group, while others may spread several donations around to many groups. There now are 614 total 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations participating in Pick.Click.Give. for 2025 (including multi-location nonprofits), including 23 from Sitka. In 2022, Alaskans donated $39,075 to Sitka-based nonprofits (note, total does not include donations to some nonprofits that are based in multiple cities, also final 2023 and 2024 totals not available).

So how do you make a donation to the Sitka Local Foods Network through the Pick.Click.Give. program? First, starting at 9 a.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 1, go fill out your Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend application at http://pfd.alaska.gov/. When you get to the section of the application asking if you want to participate in Pick.Click.Give. Charitable Contributions program, click on the PCG link and search for the Sitka Local Foods Network. You also can look for us by using the town search for Sitka.

The Pick.Click.Give. program is available only to people who file their PFD applications online, and not to those who file by mail. Even though you can’t file a new PFD application after March 31, you can go back into your application and update your Pick.Click.Give. donations through Aug. 31 each year.

You still can donate to the Sitka Local Foods Network if you aren’t from Alaska or aren’t eligible for a 2025 PFD. To donate, send your check to the Sitka Local Foods Network, 408-D Marine St., Sitka, Alaska, 99835. You also can donate online by going to our online fundraising page on MightyCause.com, and clicking the Donate button to make an online contribution. In addition, there is an online giving page through the PayPal Giving Fund. If you are trying to make nonprofit donations before the end of the 2024 tax year, you can mail in a check or make an online donation. Please let us know if you need a receipt for tax purposes. For more information about donating, you can send an email to sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.

Thank you for supporting our mission of increasing the amount of locally produced and harvested food in the diets of Southeast Alaskans.

Supporters of Sitka’s community garden project at the top of Jarvis Street can help the project along by donating to a new SeedMoney.org fundraising campaign that launched on Friday, Nov. 15. Donors have 30 days, until Dec. 15, to help one or more of 432 food garden projects around the world fund themselves.

“The goal is $2,500 which will cover about half of the cost of an engineered drainage plan, a pre-development requirement that will have to be met before we’ll be able to start clearing the site,” project manager Joel Hanson said.

The Jarvis Street community garden project was proposed by Transition Sitka and the Sitka Local Foods Network, and it will fill a glaring need in this town since the Blatchley Community Garden was closed in 2016. This project will build a new half-acre community garden at the top of Jarvis Street, near where the Sitka Homeless Coalition is building a tiny home neighborhood for unhoused Sitkans. This is the only Alaska project in this year’s #SeedMoneyChallenge.

“After more than a year of planning, we are close to securing a long-term land lease for a half-acre community garden. Construction will begin in 2025,” Hanson said.

The Jarvis Street Community Garden will have room for 45 standard 10-foot-by-20-foot plots, plus a few smaller growing beds along the perimeter fence for cultivating tall or trellised plants like snap peas.

In addition to Transition Sitka keeping all of the money raised during the contest, there are bonus grants for projects that raise more money. Any funds raised beyond what is needed for the drainage plan will be held and used for construction of the garden.

Please support our garden by going to this link, https://donate.seedmoney.org/10864/jarvis-street-community-garden, and completing the donation process. We had a similar #SeedMoneyChallenge in 2023 for a site survey, raising $2,410 with a goal of $1,500. Donations are tax deductible.

For more information, go to https://transitionsitka.org/projects/sitka-food/sitka-community-gardens/ or call project coordinator Joel Hanson at 907-747-9834.

The Sitka Local Foods Network in recent years created a sponsorship program to help promote our mission, and Sitka businesses and individuals are welcome to join for 2025. The goal of the sponsorship program is to make the projects we undertake (Sitka Farmers Market, St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, gardening education, food business development, etc.) more sustainable.

“Sitka has a precarious position when it comes to food security, and the Sitka Local Foods Network is trying to improve our community food security through our mission to increase the amount of locally harvested and produced foods in the diets of Southeast Alaskans,” Sitka Local Foods Network president Charles Bingham said. “Sponsors of the Sitka Local Foods Network are working with an organization and a farmers market that places a high value on local food and businesses, fun, premium quality goods and experiences.”

In recent years, the Sitka Local Foods Network has hosted 7-8 Sitka Farmers Markets during the summer (from July to September). Due to COVID-19, we had to greatly scale back our 2020 Sitka Farmers Markets, focusing just on produce sales and using an online sales portal, but we did double our number of market weeks. In 2021, we hosted an outdoor-only market that brought back some of our vendors. In 2022, we returned to our usual venue of the Alaska Native Brotherhood Founders Hall after a two-year absence, and we almost had a normal market (with masking to prevent the spread of COVID-19 and no half-tables to spread out vendors). We had a similar experience in our 2023 and 2024 markets. We haven’t set our 2025 market dates yet, but we anticipate we will announce them in the spring.

In addition, we grow most of the local produce sold at the markets at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm communal garden and a couple of other locations in town. In March 2020 we built a new high tunnel at St. Peter’s Fellowship Farm, and we were able to add another new high tunnel before the 2021 growing season. These high tunnels allowed us to extend our growing season and helped reduce the impact of our last couple of cold, wet summers. We usually offer a variety of garden education classes in the spring. And one way we ensured fresh, local produce is available to lower-income Sitkans is through our matching program for WIC and SNAP beneficiaries (the first $20 spent on produce at the market), courtesy of recent grants from the Sitka White Elephant Shop and the Sitka Legacy Foundation.

In 2018 we launched the Sitka Food Business Innovation Contest to inspire food entrepreneurs in Sitka, and have continued the program with the expectation of hosting it again in 2025 (our 2024 winners were Transition Sitka for work on the Jarvis Street community garden and Red Herring food truck). In 2023-24, the Sitka Local Foods Network partnered with Transition Sitka on two projects — one to update the 2014 Sitka Community Food Assessment Indicators Report and the other to build a new community garden at the top of Jarvis Street. .

There are four levels of sponsorship available, and each has its own set of perks.

• Grower ($2,500-plus) — We’ll hang your banner at ANB Hall during the Sitka Farmers Markets, include your logo and company name prominently in our merchandise and advertisements, and thank you on our social media and web pages. If appropriate for the Sitka Farmers Market, you may set up a free promotional booth.
• Harvester ($1,000-$2,499) — We’ll hang your banner at ANB Hall during the Sitka Farmers Markets and include your logo and company name in our merchandise and advertisements.
• Planter ($250-$999) — Your banner will hang at ANB Hall during the Sitka Farmers Markets.
• Friend ($50-$249) — You are listed on our online sponsor page.

We have limited space for banners at the Sitka Farmers Markets, so please contact us before June 1 to guarantee your spot. To learn more about the sponsorship program, click the link below for details and a registration form. For more information, contact Charles Bingham at (907) 623-7660 or by email at sitkalocalfoodsnetwork@gmail.com.

• 2025 Sitka Local Foods Network sponsorship program details and registration form