| Garden of Innocence/Seattle |
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| The Emerald City, Seattle, WA |
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| Kerry Hooks, founder/director of Garden of Innocence/Seattle |
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| Elissa Davey and Joe Foricino, Public Administrator |
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| Kris Sacksteder, owner of Weird Woods www.weirdwoods.com |
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| Linda Olsoe and Elissa Davey |
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| Seattle Skyline |
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| Elissa Davey on her way from Bainbridge to seek out Seattle |
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Welcome to Garden of Innocence/Seattle
October 31, 2010
Had a great week in Seattle. First and foremost, we want to thank Linda Olsoe of Bainbridge Island for opening her home to us for the week we were there and feeding us amazing meals. Linda's generosity saved us a tremendous amount in food and hotel bills.
Our first order of business was meeting with the Public Administrator, Joe Foricino. He was very excited that we are moving forward and we had a informative meeting with him.
The best news is that Kerry Hooks, who used to be with us in San Diego, will be taking over the running of the Seattle garden. She is full of energy and excited to be the newest volunteer for Garden of Innocence/Seattle. She has lots of great ideas and has already received help from the congressional level, so we are very happy to have her with us as I know she will get the job done and it will be a great garden.
Sadly we lost the cemetery that we were hoping to get a space in. Butterworth Columbarium decided that their land was too valuable for us so they decided not to doante land, tho we never asked that it be donated. I knew we could raise the funds to cover that cost.
Kerry found out that we can spread cremains on private land, so we are trying to see if we can find someone that would want to donate at least an acre of forest or open space to us so that we can make a scattering garden if we do cremains. Kerry is contacting all the cemeteries up there to see if they will help us out.
I had the pleasure of meetin Kris Sacksteder of Weird Woods, at the Pike Markey and he gave us a reduced rate on one of his handmade boxes which we can use to hold cremains. If you would like to enjoy one of Kris's creations, please log onto his website www.weirdwoods.com His work is amazing. Thank you kris, we love our little box.
Our best find in Seattle was Kerry, so if you are interested in donating your time to help Garden of Innocence/Seattle or King County, please contact Kerry at goiseattle@live.com or kerry.hooks@gmail.com. We are going to be needing a lot of volunteers in Seattle, so please write Kerry today and help her with this much worthy cause.
December 2, 2009 News
We were scheduled to fly back to Seattle today, but had to cancel for lack of funds. We have spoken with Butterworth Columbarium and they are going to find a space for us. We will not be able to take care of all the childrens cremains in the celler as the district manager says that their files are private and we can't access them. But we have some ideas that might help us overcome that obsticle and get those children out of the celler and into a nice spot made just for them. We have a few volunteers lined up to assist us as well as some from San Diego that want to come up to help as well.
August 2009
Well, we finally made it to Seattle. It is absolutely beautiful here.
On August 26th, 2009, we met with Butterworth Columbarium and the Medical Examiner to start the process of taking over their indigent burial programs. The Medical Examiner, was very excited about us coming there and ready to get the ball rolling to open a Garden of Innocence to cover the whole of King County.
One of our findings is that there are thousands of abandoned cremains in the city mortuaries dating back to the early 1900. Families that paid to have their loved one cremated but never came back to claim the ashes. There are thousands of adults as well.
Our first goal will be to find out how many children there are in the area that have been cremated and never claimed at all the mortuaries.
Next, we will need to get volunteers involved in putting them all on a data base which will require many hours sitting in the mortuaries with their files, with their permission. Hopefully most mortuaries will already have their information on data base and we just need to ask to help them find the next of kin.
Then we will get our friends that are genealogist to do the research to find families so we can notify them that their loved one will be passed to Garden of Innocence unless they step forward within a certain amount of time.
We have decided that we are going to try to see if someone in King County will donate five acres of accessable forest, so that we can turn it into a place called Sheltered Glen.
We are trying to find out what the licensing department guidelines are to start our own cemetery. We are hopeful that this will happen, we just don't know how to do it. Sheltered Glen will be the final resting place for abandoned and unidentifed children and lost adults. There will be an area set aside just for Garden of Innocence and the rest of the land will be for the adults which is anyone above 8 years old. We need to get all the people out of those storage areas and release them from their earthly stay. This is going to be an on going effort to add an additional community service to the county, save the tax payers money and make sure that no child leaves this earth without someone who cared.
Is it possible to get 5 acres of forest donated to Garden of Innocence? Anyone?
If we are able to get all the abandoned ashes, then we will scatter them throughout the forest and then let it sit for a few months. The forest will cover the ash by itself and the ash will be good for the soil as it contains minerals that will help the forest grow.
We would like to get the Boy Scouts, Girl Scouts, forest conservationist, & garden clubs to get involved in clearing paths and making benches. The garden clubs can plant flowering plants indigetist to the area. We will find monument companies that will donate statures & benches. When we are finished, this place will become a quiet place to visit and a beautiful place to sit and think. It will be powerful.
Problem is that the county has regulations on cemeteries and people just can't open a cemetery without the funds and required regulations.... who can help us solve this problem?
Won't you consider donating your time and money toward this worthy cause and help us make this all happen. If sending a check, please write "GOISeattle" in the memo area.
Please write or email us at the addresses below. We look forward to hearing from you.
Elissa Davey, Founder
P.O. Box 722 Carlsbad, CA 92008
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| CURRENT GARDEN REPRESENTATIVES |
Elissa Davey, Founder/CEO Garden of Innocence National
Kerry Hicks, Garden of Innocence/Seattle Coordinator
Linda Olsoe, Garden of innocence/Seattle Volunteer
Amy Trepus, Garden of Innocence/Seattle Volunteer
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