Five weeks from today, school starts. But there’s still a whole lot of summer left to enjoy – and today, blue sky and bright sun graced a high-profile work party at the garden on the Denny/Sealth campus. Above, new Seattle Public Schools superintendent José Banda joined Seattle Storm guard Svetlana Abrosimova in getting some plants in the garden’s raised beds. That was just one of the tasks tackled today:

And we do mean tackled. As in football. Participants included former Seahawks – like Forey Duckett:

And school leaders too – here are Sealth’s principal Chris Kinsey and vice principal Lupe Barnes with superintendent Banda:

Sustainability was the theme here – new planting beds were built from recovered cedar, for example; both schools are certified Washington Green Schools. And after a few hours, everybody was ready for a “zero-waste lunch”:

The produce was all grown in the Denny/Sealth garde and consumed with compostable utensils.As big as this was, it was actually just a prelude to an event next month, the nationwide “Green Apple Day of Service” sponsored by the Center for Green Schools at the U.S. Green Building Council on September 29th.