(Photo: Lucas Anderson/Neighborlogs.com)
Through rain and shine — and even more rain — volunteers for Saturday’s Green Seattle Day fought through the elements maintaining and restoring Seattle’s parklands.
While this job is a year-round commitment, Green Seattle Day is a day out of that year for hordes of community members to join in and aid in the conservation. Over at the St. Mark’s Greenbelt, City Trail Specialist Jacobo Jimenez and Parishioner Robert Hayden were organizing the nearly 20 volunteers not scared off by the rain.
Jacobo stands next to one of the covered slopes. The covers are made from hemp, bamboo and birch, and will biodegrade once the plant life takes over. (Photo: Lucas Anderson/Neighborlogs.com)
The goal for that day, Jimenez said, was to stabilize the slopes above the trails running through St. Mark’s, laying ground cover and planting native trees to hold the soil in place. “It’s on the hurtin’ end,” Jimenez said with smile. He has been working on the trails here long before Green Seattle was involved.
Hayden, who has been helping maintain the space for about 4 years, was directing volunteers at the bottom of greenbelt. “We really have changed this place,” he said. According to Hayden, the first trails through the area were laid in the late 90s when it was owned entirely by St. Mark’s Cathedral. Now jointly owned with Seattle Parks, the area has played part in the Green Seattle Event for the last 4 years. Hayden took great pride in all the work they had done, pointing out all the trees volunteers had planted over the years. “I hope to come out here in 30 years and see them all – a forest.”
A small sapling Hayden said was planted the year before. The area is littered with trees given to them through the city. (Photo: Lucas Anderson/Neighborlogs.com)
Green Seattle is a partnership between the City of Seattle and the Cascade Land Conservancy that is “Creating a sustainable network of healthy forested parklands throughout Seattle, supported by an aware, engaged community.”
