Fundraiser Aims To Expand Community Farm

PUYALLUP, WA — A local farm is asking for the community's support as organizers try to expand operations and provide a safe, welcoming space for Pierce County residents in need.

As fundraiser organizer Giselle Castano explains, the Rose Island Farm is currently a one-acre indigenous-owned farm in Puyallup territory in southeastern Tacoma. The farm provides a BIPOC-centered safe space and community gathering spot, where residents gather weekly to share food, make medicine, and commune with each other.

"Our ancestral knowledge gets awakened when we connect to the plant lineages that have supported and sustained us for lifetimes," Giselle Castano said. "Here at the farm, we endeavor to promote these life sustaining relationships and opportunities to connect deeply with plants and herbs through growing ancestral foods and herbs, preservation, distillation and communal herb stewardship classes."

In an effort to improve their services even more, the Rose Island Farm has launched a fundraiser through GoFundMe. Castano says the farm hopes to raise $5,000 to build benches for the medicine garden, a composting toilet, picnic tables and barn repairs, among other necessary improvements.

"The stewards of this farm are Tsimshian, who are not a federally recognized tribe," Castano writes. "The farm is also not a non-profit so we rely on a lot of collective efforts to keep the farm afloat and thriving."

>> See Rose Island Farm's fundraiser on GoFundMe.

Editor's Note: Patch is a GoFundMe promotional partner.