Our Neighborhood Approach
/At the Snohomish Conservation District, we steadily work towards positive change - one property at a time. This model has served us well through our history of working with farms, but working within cities has required a different approach.
To scale our services and increase our impact within urban spaces, we take advantage of the old adage that ‘one’s actions can affect the actions of others’. Our neighborhoods are perfect petri dishes for change - new homebuyers are continually moving in, many of our older homes are in need of upgrades, and as curious humans we love to see ‘what the neighbors are doing’.
This model served us well in our biggest and most recent cluster project, which took place in the City of Lynnwood. We started with one homeowner - who we like to call the neighborhood ‘champion’. Carol installed her rain garden in 2013 with free technical support from SCD. She loved talking with passerbys about the advantages of not having a lawn to mow, and having a rain garden soak up the flooding that usually ended up in her garage.
When grant funding came available through the Washington State Conservation Commission, we knew that we wanted to go back to Carol’s neighborhood, which lies in the priority watershed of Perrinville Creek. With the City of Lynnwood, Edmonds Community College LEAF, and WSU Extension, we engaged 19 other homeowners in the installation of either rain gardens or rain catchment systems on their properties. Dozens more volunteers came to help plant and tour the gardens.
Are you that person that is willing to create change in your neighborhood?
Please contact Kate at 425-377-7004 or kate (at) snohomishcd.org.
Read more about this project on Lynnwood Today's website. And, if you're curious about what a Rain Bed is, check out this article about our engineer Derek Hann's invention.
