By Anita Waghani, Community Education Project Manager

There is something special that happens when people come together around a piece of land.

I joined McAuliffe Park in Kirkland in 2018, and I feel incredibly fortunate to have witnessed what has grown here over the years. Through the energy, generosity, and dedication of our volunteer community, McAuliffe has become so much more. It is a thriving learning garden and urban forest — a place where people grow food, restore habitat, share knowledge and culture, and learn from one another.

And something beautiful has happened along the way: what began with caring for the soil and plants has grown into a community of care.Gardeners and volunteers have formed friendships, created a garden club and mutual-care community, visited one another’s gardens, helped care for each other’s growing spaces, and gathered to prepare and share meals together. 

Over the past few years, our community has come together for more than 100 volunteer work parties, contributing more than 5,500 hours of collective care. Together, volunteers have planted 475 native plants, applied more than 48 cubic yards of mulch to build soil health and water retention, and shared food with volunteers and the Hopelink Food Market – including more than 1,000 pounds of produce in 2025.

But these numbers tell only part of the story. They don’t capture the friendships formed, the knowledge shared across cultures, the volunteers who have stepped into leadership, or the ways people take stewardship back into their own gardens and communities.

One volunteer shared:

“Learning about our local ecosystem in such a hands-on, thoughtful way was eye-opening. Your passion and your team’s care for the work you do was inspirational. You reminded us how much we can do in our own small ways to be better stewards of the world around us. We left feeling inspired, grounded, and grateful.”

For me, McAuliffe Park is a reminder that stewardship is about more than caring for a piece of land. It is about the relationships we build through that care. When we tend the soil together, grow food together, restore habitat together, and make time for one another, something larger begins to grow.

Interested in joining us? We welcome volunteers of all experience levels to come learn and work alongside us on Thursdays from 10 a.m.-2 p.m.

I hope to see you out in the garden!