By Corey Olson, The Seattle Medium
After a year of searching, Nurturing Roots, a Seattle-based community farming program, has opened a farm site with a wetland and creek in Burien after losing its Beacon Hill property in 2023.
Nyema Clark, founder of Nurturing Roots, said the farm was acquired in July 2025 and opened with a Farm Day on Aug. 31.
“I didn’t know why I had to lose something in order to gain what we have now, but I feel like the universe just grabbed us up because we’ve been supporting others for so long,” Clark said.
Nurturing Roots hosts Farm Days every Sunday. Volunteers are invited to help out by planting or picking fruits and vegetables, and Clark said that Nurturing Roots will begin regularly hosting Farm Days at the new Burien site this month.
Clark established Nurturing Roots in 2016 to provide a space for underserved communities in the larger Seattle area to learn more about food systems. Nurturing Roots fulfills its mission by growing fruits, vegetables, herbs, and flowers for those who otherwise wouldn’t have access. They also offer educational workshops on topics like gardening, farming, and food preservation to people of all ages at schools and other community organizations.
Clark ultimately wants Nurturing Roots to be a safe space for anyone who needs it. Clark hopes that this space can be held eventually as a collective entity so it can operate in perpetuity for people who have never owned anything.
“A lot of folks of color, our ancestors were stolen from. We’re stolen people,” Clark said. “There are a lot of folks that have inheritance, but I just want this space to be in perpetuity and a place where folks can find themselves, see themselves, feel respected.”
Nurturing Roots was forced to vacate their Beacon Hill property in March 2023 after the owner, Bethany United Church of Christ, did not renew their lease.
After moving the farm’s plants and herbs to Small Axe Farms in Woodinville, Clark immediately started looking for property in Seattle. However, she quickly found out that she was priced out of almost every property within city limits, despite having $900,000 dollars from an Equitable Development Initiative (EDI) award granted by the City of Seattle in 2021.
Clark said she was able to purchase the property with money acquired from King County’s Conservation Futures Program, which uses tax dollars to preserve natural habitats. According to a press release from the King County Department of Natural Resources and Parks in January, $107 million dollars went towards protecting 3,000 acres of land throughout King County to promote climate resilience, greenspace expansion, habitat restoration and farmland access.
Clark said she still has all of the funds from the City of Seattle’s EDI grant sitting in the bank, which she hopes to use to purchase an office space in Georgetown in collaboration with Watershed Community Development. The nonprofit organization develops work spaces for communities who have been or are at risk of displacement and focuses on serving those living and working in the Duwamish Valley.
“There’s just a lot of pieces that folks don’t even see,” Clark said. “People saw we got an award and the county thinks they are helping us, but truly it just opened up a whole other Pandora’s box of what it means to be an owner.”
Clark found a potential farm site in southeast Seattle in September 2023 but said she was unable to purchase the property after conducting five months of property studies. Clark said she spent $90,000 dollars of her own money to perform these studies because she wanted to save money from the EDI grant for the new property.
“There’s so many barriers that folks face, especially folks that are novice in this space,” Clark said. “There are so many different processes that I have had to develop an understanding for, and if you don’t understand them you’re just going to get lost.”
Clark also believes her identity as a Black woman meant she was subjected to harsher judgment during the search process. For example, she said, the owner of a property told her she couldn’t take care of their property because it was too large.
“To me, there were so many moments where my character was judged, and I just wanted to be judged as an entity and come at this like other folks did,” Clark said.
Carlin Coulter, who sold the Burien farm site to Nurturing Roots, volunteered with Clark’s organization in 2019 and bought the Burien property in September 2021 after her hair salon in Capitol Hill closed.
“I’ve always loved gardening, so I needed an outlet,” Coulter said. “An opportunity came that I was able to purchase this empty lot in Burien and I was inspired by Nyema and Nurturing Roots for doing community farming, education, all of that.”
According to the King County property records, the Burien property is made-up of two adjacent plots of land that sit between a condominium complex and a residential home. The property is also located approximately four miles north of Seattle-Tacoma International Airport. Coulter said she brought in external soil and was using raised beds to plant fruits and vegetables at the farm site.
“I thought about the air and soil health,” Coulter said. “I have this beautiful property, so I’ll just bring in soil from other places.”
Coulter opened the farm site as Cosmic Hen Farm and began hosting weekly summer markets with local farmers and artists from nearby cities, such as SeaTac and White Center. She said the market drew a large number of immigrant families and farmers from these surrounding areas, which she thinks Nurturing Roots will continue to serve once they begin their Farm Days on a regular basis again.
“I think Nurturing Roots is going to fit right in,” Coulter said. “The immediate neighbors are going to love that the property is still a working farm community space.”
Coulter listed the property May 15 and immediately reached out to Nurturing Roots through a real-estate agent. However, after weeks of no response, Coulter accepted an offer from a developer.
According to Coulter, the Burien property was considered a critical land area due to its wetland and required thorough property studies before a buyer could develop it. After one week of conducting property studies, the developer asked for more time. It was at that same time that Coulter finally heard back from Clark. Coulter denied the developer’s request for additional time and accepted Nurturing Roots’ offer.
“It was a dream come true,” Coulter said. “I cried when we were able to accept Nurturing Roots’ offer, because that was just how it was supposed to be.”
Lauren Graham, a former teacher at Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool, worked with Clark throughout the COVID-19 pandemic to give their students the opportunity to feed chickens and eat freshly grown mushrooms, kale and chia.
“The parents were so excited because it was the sort of thing where their kids would never have eaten it if it hadn’t come from Nyema,” Graham said.
According to Graham, Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool is a predominantly white-run organization. Working with Nurturing Roots, a Black-run organization, gave students the chance to engage with communities that differed from their own.
“Getting wrapped in love by these amazing Black people was something really special for the kids,” Graham said. “I’m sure they didn’t know exactly what they were experiencing but I think it’s something they’re gonna have in their hearts for the rest of their lives.”
Graham said the Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool had leased space from Bethany United Church of Christ since 2017. When Graham heard that the church did not renew Nurturing Roots’ lease, Graham coordinated with other lessees on the Bethany Campus to write a letter in support of the renewal of the farm’s lease. According to Graham, these lessees included Black Power Epicenter, Refugee Women’s Alliance and Got Green.
After sending the letter to the church, Graham said, the church became increasingly adversarial and less lenient about lease payments. Graham set up a meeting with the church’s leadership to talk through these issues, but was unable to make progress after their initial discussion went “terribly,” she said.
In an emailed statement, Rev. Angela Ying of Bethany United Church of Christ, said when Nurturing Roots was looking to buy property with funds acquired from the City of Seattle, their land on the Bethany Campus was not for sale.
In her email, Ying said she was glad to hear that Nurturing Roots “found a place to call home in Burien” and wished Nurturing Roots the best. The Rainier Valley Cooperative Preschool moved out of the Bethany Campus in June 2025 and began the following school year at their new location in Rainier Beach. Graham left shortly after and is currently in an occupational therapy master’s program at the University of Washington, Seattle.
“There’s nothing like Nurturing Roots,” Graham said. “It was this ideal space and served this big Rainier Valley community, but it’s not there anymore and not having that is definitely a loss to the community.”
