Finney Farm Seed Distro and Outreach

Finney Farm Seed Distro and Outreach

The Finney Farm Seed Distro and Outreach (FFSDO) program seeks to improve food access for with a focus on low income households, schools, and community gardens, and to increase overall food sovereignty in the Cascadia Bioregion. By growing, processing, packaging and distributing approximately 10k packages of heirloom, organic, open-pollinated seed at no charge and offering a range of workshops, trainings, and publications to support the idea of people providing their own food. Through collaborations with local organizations and agencies, FFSDO also offers consultation for school or community garden projects.

The mission of FFSDO is to improve food access for low income households, schools, community gardens, and others. Through endeavors including the production and distribution of free organic heirloom seed and education outreach such as workshops and consultation, FFSDO strives to increase food sovereignty in the Cascadia Bioregion.

This project began at the Okanogan Barter Faire in 2007, when FFSDO operated a “free booth” and brought several hundred packages of heirloom seed for distribution. The seeds were very well received, and FFSDO began to package up more seeds each year. It quickly became obvious that the need was greater than anticipated and within a couple of years, distribution increased to 4000+ packages of seed. FFSDO distributed at local schools, seed swaps, food banks, community gardens, and other organizations. FFSDO has partnered with WSU’s Ideas for Healthy Living program so that we may offer Backyard Gardening workshops with free seed at Head Start preschools and elementary schools in Skagit County.

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