By Nick Jewett

These groups find themselves on common ground at the Village Green:  Kingston High School Honor Society students, Master Gardeners, the Kingston Farm & Garden Co-Op, the Kingston Garden Club, Village Green Foundation, and Rotary Interact clubs from Kingston and Poulsbo.

This broad alliance is busy pursuing funds as well as dotting I’s and crossing T’s so that we will see a demonstration pea-patch garden at the Village Green this year. Funding has been awarded by Kingston Garden Club, Puget Sound Energy Foundation, and an anonymous donor. Thanks especially to Miles Yanick of Miles Yanick & Company, who donated many hours of his time to this project.

Picnic Pavilion: We are making arrangements for drawings to be done that can accompany permit applications. Kingston-North Kitsap Rotary still intends to fund this project, so that funds raised by the Village Green Foundation can be used for the multipurpose community center at the Village Green. We expect a late 2012 picnic pavilion, simple but good-looking. Thanks to Rotary for making this possible, and to Matt House for spearheading the project.

The building: Stay tuned for some really exciting news in the April edition of the Community News concerning the property itself.  Meantime, our capital campaign is in the quiet phase and we hope to have good news on that score later in 2012, hopefully by this summer.

You may recall that we are working on funding for a 21,000-square foot building that will include a Boys & Girls Club, a senior center, and the Kingston branch of Kitsap Regional Library.  To achieve all of this, and be able to use funds we were awarded by the state’s Department of Commerce last year, we have to raise as much as $3 million. Gulp! We are cautiously optimistic about raising the funds.

If you know anyone at all that might like to participate in the fundraising effort, from approaching potential donors to providing secretarial services to writing grants, please contact us at info@kingstonvillagegreen.org.