Community garden seeks new leadership following five years of growth

SPOKANE VALLEY, Wash. — Tucked behind homes on Mission and Bowdish in Spokane Valley sits a green oasis where life of all shapes and sizes grows. Mission Meadows Community Garden has become more than just a place to cultivate vegetables and flowers—it’s a community hub where people from across the Inland Northwest connect, volunteer, and access fresh produce at no cost.

“We are at Mission Meadows Community Garden. We have a you pick flower area that’s amazing. It’s beautiful with Dalias, a food garden, a market garden, where we supply the community with produce and about 70 rental beds,” Lynn Parsons, president of the garden said.

Every two weeks, volunteers harvest food from the market garden, providing members of the community with fresh produce at no cost.

Michele Smith, a board member at Mission Meadows, explained how the free produce distribution works. “We come in, we pick, we clean, we lay everything out, and then people from the community, anybody that might need fresh produce, can come. And we are a non-profit, so we don’t charge anything. But if you can leave a donation, that’s great,” Smith said.

After five years leading the non-profit, Lynn Parsons, the garden’s president, is ready to pass the responsibilities to new hands.

“My husband and I would like to step back and it’s time for some other group, a person, a church to take over the non-profit. I think that’s needed for community to have a variety of different people coming in and adding what the neighborhood might want,” she said.

What makes Mission Meadows stand out is its ability to bring together people from different walks of life. The garden has become a gathering space where volunteers and gardeners of all ages work side by side, forming unexpected friendships and connections.

“I don’t know how it happens but it’s pretty amazing to see the cranky old guy in his 90s hanging out with the 25-year-old tatted up person. They’d probably never be friends, but here at the garden, they are friends,” Parsons said.

Sherpriya Kaur, a volunteer at the garden, described how the space fosters both personal and community growth. “Gardens grow, they take time to grow, just like people and relationships, the more you add into it, the bigger and better it gets every year, the more bounty it will produce. Whether its bounty in produce, or flowers, or relationship building, I think it enhances everything,” Kaur said.

Mission Meadows Community Garden is open every day, with the market stand operating every other Wednesday from 4:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m.