Three recent reminders of our Why

As you may know, our home garden initiative on the Pine Ridge Reservation is entering its fourth year.

On paper, a dozen vegetable gardens at homes on the reservation might seem like a small, perhaps insignificant effort in the face of deep poverty, food insecurity, and ongoing dispossession.
But when you look at the bigger picture, the generational, from-the-ground-up nature of this work, perhaps a dozen gardens are part of a shift towards sustainability, food sovereignty, and a future of abundance for Native communities working hard to transform the challenging circumstances surrounding them.
Here are three ways we’ve been reminded recently of the powerful transformation that can come from these little steps towards a better future:
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1. A message from a Lakota mother illustrating the ripple effects of a single garden:
“Look, I gave away my first vegetable bag. The lady loved it.” This text (along with the photo below) was sent to us by a Lakota mother of four and Tipi Raisers Tokala last week. Alongside her husband, she has been harvesting potatoes, onions and more from the garden she and her family planted with our team. The harvest has been abundant - providing enough yield for her to share with elders in her community throughout the growing season.

2. A beautiful lesson on the science and Indigenous wisdom that help these gardens grow:
Another truck full of buffalo manure, provided by our partners at the Laramie Foothills Bison Conservation Herd at CSU, is soon to be delivered to the gardens of families we serve on Pine Ridge. Our friends from Common Name Farm, who lead our garden initiative, have noted that the use of this fertilizer restores, in a small way, a balance to the Great Plains ecosystems devastated by the government-orchestrated herd slaughters a century ago. The farmers have also observed that plants fertilized with the buffalo manure grow taller, stronger, and faster than those fertilized by store-bought fertilizer - a testament to the symbiotic relationship between the Buffalo, the plant beings, and the sacred lands of the Lakota and other Plains Tribes.

3. A snapshot of the intergenerational, cross-cultural collaboration that sows the seeds of change:
In June, longtime volunteer Joe worked alongside Gen7 youth on Pine Ridge to plant and tend to home gardens. Joe and the young man in this photo represent the connection and healing that can take place when youth and adult mentors, Native and non-Native, remain committed to coming back again and again in a spirit of reconciliation.

Our work is comprised of small acts;  youth planting gardens, volunteers packing monthly food boxes, youth chopping firewood, communities reconnecting to the buffalo - but when we stay committed to these little steps toward change, the small things become the big things.
Thank you for walking this road with us.