Running an education-based farm and feeding the community relies on support from many different departments, businesses and individuals.

Help the Farm Grow!

Every year, we have the capacity to grow more food and be a  bigger educational and research resource at the UW, but not without your support. Every contribution goes to work immediately, helping us better serve students. Your support can sustain our momentum and help seed new opportunities for student internships, academic work, and future growth. Please consider making a gift to the Farm today.

Make a monetary gift to the Farm online

Large projects with big impact

Mini Wash-Pack:  Improve food safety and reduce the carbon footprint of food

We want to build a Mini-Wash/Pack at the farm site at Mercer Court

A Wash/Pack is a place for safely, cleanly washing and packing produce after it is harvested for distribution.  The Mercer Court location on west campus does not have a wash/pack. We grow food on nearly a half acre at this site and we are challenged due to a lack of a place to secure our harvest tools, wash hands before the harvest, weigh and sort produce.. Since 2013, UW Farm staff have had to drive produce all the way to east campus to the farm site at the Center for Urban Horticulture in order to wash and pack our produce. Then we drive back to west campus to deliver. Having a Mini-Wash/Pack on west campus would reduce fossil fuel use, reduce miles to outlets, and increase efficiency.

We received an estimate and design to retrofit an existing area at the Mercer Court site. $8,000.00 would create an innovative, enclosed space for sinks, tools, and fold-down-up tables enclosed with sliding walls. Educational food safety and harvest information would adorn the walls. If you are interested seeing the design, having some input, and/or helping us make this happen, email the Farm Manager, Perry Acworth, persis@uw.edu.

World Cultural Kitchen Improvement Project:  Hot water and roof completion 

We want to add a solar-powered hot water supply and more roof panels to the World Cultural Kitchen which supports the Community Pizza Bakes and the future Burke Museum Earth Oven project. 

The open-air outdoor World Cultural Kitchen at the UW Farm is where classes and community groups gather. The Kitchen also hosts farm pizza bakes, and in the near future, the Burke Museums’ satellite learning space, Earth Ovens. Located at the UW Farm’s east campus growing site, the Kitchen and Hearth were built by students enrolled in the Neighborhood Design Build Studio course in the years, 2023 and 2024. The project is nearly complete thanks to support from the American Public Gardens Association, UW Botanic Garden Association, Urban Agriculture Resiliency Grant, College of Built Environments, Nestle, and a generous donation from community member Emily Dexter.

The challenge we hope to overcome at present is the ability to pass UW Environmental Health and Safety requirements for food preparation and adding more roof panels. At this time: the UW Farm is unable to get final approval for food preparation and serving without a dedicated hot hand wash sink; and large groups gathering under the small roof need additional protection from harsh weather.

Completion of this project would finally provide a safe space for on-farm harvesting, preparing and sharing food ways form different cultures around the world. By sharing knowledge and passing information from one generation to the next, we learn where our food comes from, and how our food choices affect the world around us. As our population becomes more urban, our connections to farmers, food workers, basic cooking and food preparation skills decrease. Food waste also contributes to carbon emissions and can be avoided.

An estimate for the installation of the tankless propane-powered hot water heater, sink, and UW Facilities plumbing would be approximately $5,000. The roof improvement would be far less at, materials can be found and installed by the farm team for approximately $1000. If you are interested in contributing any amount towards this project, would like to have some input, can connect us with resources, or can help us make this happen, email the Farm Manager, Perry Acworth, persis@uw.edu.

Heritage Orchard and Fruit Tree Project: Organic pest management for our fruit supply to the community

We want to continue to grow perennial fruit for our community following organic practices, without the use of any synthetic chemical sprays that might injure wildlife, farm workers, volunteers. We also want to make sure our fruit is healthy and safe to eat while demonstrating pest management strategies for apple maggot, thrips, coddling moth, other insects and wildlife.

The UW Farm has apple, plum, pear trees, figs, blueberries and strawberries. In recent years pest pressure from insects and wildlife have diminished the volume of harvestable fruit by 50%. We are committed to organic fruit production, but need support to protect the fruit for distribution to students, local households, the UW Food Pantry and UW Dining cafeterias.

Apple, plum, pear and fig fruit tree netting:

Net for one fruit tree: $100-$200 each depending on the size of the tree plus shipping

We have 27 trees at the east campus growing site (CUH) and 10 trees at the west campus growing site (Mercer)

Blueberry netting:

Net for one row of blueberries:  $85-100 each 50 row. 

We have four rows of blueberries at the west campus growing site

Strawberry cages:

Crop cage for strawberries: 6′ square master kit is $159 each.

We have one plot of strawberries at our east campus growing site. The plot measures 24′ x 36′. Total need is $3500 without shipping.

If you are interested in contributing to this project at any level of donation, would like input and/or can share resources for this project, please email the Farm Manager, Perry Acworth, persis@uw.edu.

In-Kind Donations:

Donate new or used materials and supplies!

Do you have extra farming or gardening equipment or other supplies that you would like to donate? Check out our Wish List below. Or, if you have other resources and networks we would like to learn more!  Reach out to the UW Farm: uwfarm@uw.edu. 

Wish List

• Wooden picnic tables
• Fruit tree nets
• Strawberry cages
• Wheelbarrows
• U-bar or broadforks – link HERE
• Digging forks – link HERE
• Shovels
• Fruit harvest baskets – link HERE
• 100′ garden hoses
• Cement blocks
• Dry applewood, cherry, or other hardwoods for our pizza oven
• Tankless solar hot water heater
• Scissors
• Clean, food-grade 5-gallon buckets with metal handles
• Circular saw
• Table saw
• Hack saw
• Hori Hori – link HERE
• Hardware cloth or rolls of 100′ x 3′, 1/2″ metal mesh fencing
• Extra seeds for the Little Free Seed Library