It was a combination of vision and moxie that created the Danny Woo Community Garden.
In 1975 resources specifically targeted for Asian and Pacific Islanders were scarce. The concept of culturally-appropriate services was new, social and health service agencies like the Chinatown/International District community clinic and the Head Start Center were just starting up, and Seattle’s own P-Patch program was only a couple of years old.
Activists and organizations led by InterIm CDA negotiated with local landowner and community leader Danny Woo to take his property on sloping open space in the north side of Chinatown/International District and convert it into a useful, functional space for the residents in the neighborhood.
The vision was simple: a community garden for our Asian elders to allow them to feel the earth in their hands, to plant the foods they missed from their native countries, and, most importantly, to provide social connections, recreation and exercise for the aging immigrant residents.
“Uncle” Bob Santos provided the moxie.
Executive Director of InterIm CDA at the time, Santos proposed an unprecedented private-public partnership that would eventually combine Danny Woo’s property and a city-owned park, Kobe Terrace, into the Danny Woo International District Community Garden.
Santos recalls the day he negotiated the deal, “Danny and Wilma Woo owned the Quong Tuck Restaurant and Lounge, and it was becoming the hangout for the InterIm staff and local community activists. One day I asked Danny Woo for permission to build a garden for the Asian elders on his property above Main Street. But as a nonprofit agency, I told him InterIm could only afford $1 a year for rent. I also asked him, ‘Oh, and by the way, could we have a long-term lease?’ Well, Danny said yes to the dollar, but no to the long-term lease. That was in 1975, and InterIm is still operating the garden.”
People came together to plan and build the garden, terrace the slope, haul the lumber, till the soil, and plant the first seeds. As they did this, they broke down racial, ethnic, and generational barriers.
This tradition continues today as hundreds of volunteers of different ethnicities from all walks of life work in the garden each year.
Children’s Garden
Last spring, an experimental children’s garden was added in the Danny Woo Community Garden. Children from nearby Nihonmachi Terrace Family Housing planted fruits and vegetables. They also learned how to identify the different parts of plants, used their imaginations to create their own make-believe plants, and made stamped artworks using the dyes from plants.
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