Fifth annual Free the Seeds! returns to FVCC on Saturday

The Free The Seeds! event returns to Flathead Community College this weekend for its fifth annual presentation of workshops, activities, seed sharing and more.

The event runs on Saturday, March 7 from 9 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. in the FVCC Arts and Technology Building.

About 1,000 people are expected to visit the event, which will focus on reducing and recovering waste to build a healthy community-based food system. Topics include seed saving, gleaning, repurpsosing, composting, recycling and vermiculture.

Throughout the day, there will be 24 educational workshops by local experts, with demonstrations focusing on things like saving seeds, building a compost tumbler, cultivating mushrooms and brewing compost tea.

For they younger crowd, there will be kid-friendly hands-on activities, and for the hungry bunch, 40-plus booths to sample local foods.

As part of the seed swap, there will be more than 10,000 packets of seeds available.

There will also be panel discussions focused on recovering food waste, reducing plastic use, gleaning and eliminating food and plastic waste at farmers markets and more.

Among the presenters will be Todd Ulizio of Two Bear Farm, Sarah Harding of Coconut at Sea Soap Co., Hans Helmstetler of Snow Country Gardens, Kimberly Fisher of Earthly Insights and Lindy Dewey from SpiritWorks Herb Farm.

Over the last four years, more than 5,600 people have attended this free daylong fair. Upward of 75,000 packets of non-GMO, open-pollinated seeds have been given away, with about half collected locally and packed by local volunteers. Collection boxes for locally saved seeds will be available ahead of the event at ImagineIF libraries in Kalispell and Columbia Falls and at the Good Seed Company in Whitefish. Volunteers interested in joining seed-packing parties before the fair or helping at the event can sign up at freetheseedsmontana.com.

Free the Seeds! is a program of the nonprofit Farm Hands — Nourish the Flathead Free the Seeds! can be found online at freetheseedsmontana.com and on Facebook, Instagram and YouTube.

For more information, contact Gretchen Boyer at gretchen@farmhandsnourish.org or 406-261-5569.