The King Conservation District announced last Tuesday that the Vashon Maury Island Land Trust and Vashon Island Grower’s Association are recipients of grants totaling $91,300 to be used for regional food system projects.

The Land Trust has received $50,000 that, according to Executive Director Tom Dean, will go toward the redevelopment of Matsuda Farm with the goal of establishing a farm-to-school program with the Vashon Island School District (VISD).

For several years, VISD has been cooking fresh meals for students, but has to truck wholesale produce onto the island. Vashon Community Care, which also cooks fresh for its residents, is another potential wholesale customer for the historic farm.

“This award from KCD really catapults us forward on this project,” Dean said in a statement.

The grant will be used to construct an irrigation system and deer fencing and to break soil and plant cover crops. However, in addition to the grant, the King Conservation District has been assisting the Land Trust with farm planning and has volunteered to plant a native plant buffer around the pond.

“This project has been hitting on all cylinders.” Land Trust Board Chair Mary Frances Lyons said in a statement.

The Land Trust purchased 12 acres of the historic Matsuda Farm in 2015 and has been working through the summer and fall to restore the original 1930 farmhouse. The large property is the organization’s first farmland preservation project.

Initially, in January of 2016, the Land Trust planned to lease the historic property to a local farmer, but decided against it in June. Dean said at the time that after interviewing multiple farmers, the organization wanted to “retain closer management of the project.”

Meanwhile, the Vashon Island Growers Association (VIGA) received $41,300 to develop and pilot a mobile produce shopping website in summer 2017. Dubbed Vashon Fresh, it will enable commuters and residents to order fresh, local, customized produce and products and pick them up at day’s end.

Vashon Fresh will be similar to web-based services like Amazon Fresh and Blue Apron, which enable customers to order food from their smart devices, VIGA Co-Chair Dan Carlson said in a statement. The main differences will be that all the produce and products will be from Vashon growers, and islanders will pick up their customized orders at the end of the day on their way home from work, not have them delivered. The project will be piloted in the summer of 2017.

“This opens a new market for local farmers and residents, ” Carlson said. “We have a lot of entrepreneurship on this island, so we get to try more innovative things.”

He continued to say that the organization wants to demonstrate that it, too, can benefit local residents, not just giant corporations like Amazon and Safeway.

“About half of Vashon’s population, 5,400 residents, commute to work, offering a substantial number of people that would take advantage of the convenience of an order-and-pick-up service,” Carlson said.

The two projects, once completed, can work with each other. Carlson said that once the Matsuda Farm begins growing again, the produce will need to be aggregated and distributed, which is where Vashon Fresh can help. VIGA is also in the midst of conducting a feasibility study for the creation of a food hub, an aggregation and processing facility for local food.

“To have two projects like this from two different organizations that dovetail with each other, it’s exciting,” Carlson said.

King Conservation District’s Josh Monaghan said that the district received 33 grant applications. The Vashon grants are two of 11 projects that were chosen to be funded through the district’s Regional Food Systems grant program.

The grant program was created last year with the intent to contribute to the economic viability of local farmers, encourage new farmers, expand acreage in food production, improve food access and increase demand for King County farm products.

“We’re funding projects to help the local food economy,” Monaghan said. “We have three broad categories that we work to support: local food production, local food demand and food access to all residents.”

He said the Land Trust’s Matsuda Farm project has “some tie-in” to food access, but is focused on local food production and the conservation of working farmland.

“It’s great to be doing work on Vashon. I think some forget that there is farmland there,” Monaghan said.

He continued to say that VIGA’s project to market to commuters represents a large step for demand for local food.