Salish Sea Stories
Skills and resource sharing
July 2024
The coastal neighbourhood was invited through posters and word of mouth to share stories about the area where we live at a July afternoon gathering in Finn Bay, BC. Through the NSG grant, we were able to provide local food snacks (goat cheese, locally made crackers, etc) and there were plums (although very small this year) from the large fruit tree beside a local garden and community gathering art spot. Folks were encouraged to bring something local to share like a story, veggie, craft, etc. so that we could create care packages to distribute back to the neighbourhood. There were 34 people that came to the gathering and 18 care packages were distributed back to families. It was a bit challenging to figure out a way of getting the packages to people that had come to the gathering, so next time, we would ask them to leave an address so we could just drop them off where people live, without having to coordinate a central pick up spot.
Some of the highlights:
-We were able to make natural inks with the plums and red poppy petals.
-A neighborhood artist had everyone paint a self portrait with some paint and the natural inks.
-Two of the neighbors brought their own clay from their pond beside the ocean. This clay was beautiful green and orange coloured from the neighborhood and we slaked and sieved it and then played, shaped and experimented with it. It was so much fun!
-We packaged the clay for distributing to families along with the local red poppy/plum ink with recipe how to’s and blank journals.
-One of the neighbours brought small homemade soaps made from local lavender, lemon verbena, and peppermint and we added those to the care packages along with the fresh plums and some garden peas. We made sure to have a note in the packages to always wash fresh fruit/veg before consumption.
Thank you for this opportunity to get to know and connect the neighborhood in a creative way!
