Highlighting Lewis County: Third Thursdays Bring Together Entrepreneurs

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My daughter and I joined friends for the monthly Third Thursday evening entertainment at Dawn’s Delectables Dessert and Sandwich Shoppe on Tower Avenue in Centralia.

We enjoyed listening to Dennis Harris, a 1975 Toledo High School graduate, as he strummed the acoustic guitar and played folk songs, love ballads and familiar tunes from days gone by.

As we visited, we listened with one ear to Harris, who lives in Kalama, sing John Denver’s “Almost Heaven,” Elton John’s “Candle in the Wind” and Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “Blowin’ in the Wind,” among others. Harris, whose daughter, Grace Harris, also performs acoustic, soul and folk music professionally, has performed at Dawn’s one evening a month for two years — ever since she heard him sing during a summer Arts of the Mountain event in Cowlitz County.

Dawn Lawson, who frequently wins top honors at United Way’s annual Chef’s Night Out fundraising event, describes the sandwich shop she opened in April 2013 as her “dream.” She’s now expanding the restaurant south toward Pine Street, adding 2,000 square feet.

While we enjoyed the music, I spied a young girl darting among the tables with a glass vase filled with a bouquet of orange and yellow flowers. On her second trip into the restaurant, she saw Lawson sitting at our table and handed her the vase.

It turns out 8-year-old Ellie Gullett, like Harris and Dawn, is an entrepreneur who heads the Flower Patch at her family’s Seedpod Farm on Waunch Prairie in northeast Centralia. Once a week, she sells Lawson the 15-flower bouquet she carefully arranged for a dollar a stem.

 In January, when she was still only 7, Ellie gave a presentation to Lawson, complete with a display board describing the fresh-cut flowers she could provide and drawings of bouquets she could create for the restaurateur.

“We had her make a pitch like you would make to any potential clients,” said her mother, Julie Gullett. “She drew illustrations of what the bouquets would look like with vases and put together a presentation board. She marked what she thought Dawn might like.”

Adam and Julie Gullett, who grew up in Eastern Washington and have lived in Vancouver, moved with their family six years ago to more than 21 acres on Howard Avenue that butts up against the Skookumchuck River. Adam works as a physical therapist for Providence Centralia Hospital; Julie, a teacher, homeschools Ellie and her two brothers, 12-year-old Isaac and 10-year-old Nathaniel.

All five work on the farm.

“Part of what we have chosen to do is to include them in the development of the farm,” Julie said. “Each kiddo has a ‘lane’ of the family business plan that they help research, plan and implement.”

For Isaac, it’s the honeybees and the chickens, a flock of 25 slated to increase next week by 100. Nathaniel pastured the pumpkin patch. Ellie’s lane is the Flower Patch at Seedpod Farm.



“Everyone helps with the veg patch, festivals, school tours,” Julie said. “Each kid gives a presentation on their particular lane during the tour.”

 Seedpod Farm grows 150 varieties of vegetables in 44 raised beds as well as an orchard, 18 acres of hay and seven hives of honeybees.

On the Third Thursday of each month, Seedpod Farm sets up in downtown Centralia and the children earn all the proceeds. They sell honey, farm-fresh eggs and fryers. They’ve raised turkeys in the past. They also sell vegetables and veggie starts.

And they talk about Community Supported Agriculture 

Shares, a program connecting growers and consumers interested in buying fresh from the farmers. The farmer sells shares to consumers who receive a bag of fresh produce each week. Julie said they’ve also started a Servant Share CSA, which gives partners an opportunity to reduce their subscription cost by working on the farm each week and learning how to grow food for their families in a four- by 10-foot raised bed.

Together, they identified low-income seniors as the population group most in need of food. They asked their partners to find people who needed produce, and one connected them with an apartment complex where they deliver fresh produce free once a week.

“Each week we will be sharing our abundance with some of our elder neighbors in the form of a Servant Share,” Julie said. “This is the heart of going to seed … and why we chose the name of our farm.”

The children also helped their mother lobby for the farm internship program, which allows small farms to hire up to three interns who will have worker compensation protection while they learn about farming.

The Gulletts also organize free family-friendly festivals on their farm three times a year—one in April, a Tomato Festival Aug. 29, and a Cider Press and Harvest Festival Sept. 22.

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Julie McDonald, a personal historian from Toledo, may be reached at memoirs@chaptersoflife.com.