Tales from the Terrace: Ms. Lai

Ms. Lai's Story

      Ms. Lai is a relatively new member of the Danny Woo Community Garden, with just one year under her belt as one of our elder gardeners. But don't underestimate her growing skills, Ms. Lai was a career farmer in her home country of Hong Kong.
       After moving to Seattle in 1993, she fell very homesick for her friends and family back in Hong Kong. She took whatever opportunity she could to visit home and stay connected to her roots. Through the years however, she was able to build a community within Chinatown/International District and noticed many of her new friends were growing at the Danny Woo Community Garden. In 2015, she joined them as one of our gardeners. Most recently, she was delighted to relocate to a plot that neighbors one of her closest friends of over 20 years. Ms. Lai treats gardening as her daily form of exercise. She loves planting potatoes, lettuce, and squash.

This week's story was authored by youth from ACRS's Job Readiness Program who have been working alongside our elder gardens all spring. Youth developed interview questions, conducted interviews with the elder gardeners, and translated their stories into English. This was a special project as part of the intergenerational programming in the garden.