Longmont, Colorado, June 14, 2017 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- First Nations Development Institute (First Nations), with the generous support of the W.K. Kellogg Foundation and Agua Fund, recently awarded 15 program grants to Native American tribes and organizations under First Nations’ Native Agriculture and Food Systems Initiative (NAFSI).
Each funded project aims to achieve one or more of numerous objectives, including strengthening local food-system control; increasing access to local, healthy and traditional foods; and/or decreasing food insecurity and food deserts, all with an emphasis on serving Native American children and families. It is hoped that the projects will noticeably improve a tribe or community’s effort to increase access to healthy and fresh foods for vulnerable children, families and communities.
Additionally, the efforts will help increase awareness of and involvement with where the community’s food comes from, and expand knowledge of the linkages between foods, Native cultures and/or contribute to tribal economic growth and the development of entrepreneurially-related food ventures.
The new grantees are:
- Akwesasne Task Force on the Environment, Inc., Hogansburg, New York, $35,000 – The grant will assist Akwesasne community members by supporting traditional agricultural practices such as planting community gardens, maintaining apple trees, planting strawberries, tapping maple trees, canning and drying produce, sharing Haudenosaunee seeds and knowledge with other nations, and advocating for traditional cultural practices and language.
- American Indian Resource Center, Inc., Tahlequah, Oklahoma, $30,000 – The funding will help build a sustainable food source (fruits/vegetables) for three tribal communities, with the aim of increasing consumption of healthy foods. Families will be reintroduced to growing/gathering their own foods while making healthier lifestyle choices.
- Confederated Tribes and Bands of the Yakama Nation, Toppenish, Washington, $35,000 – The Kamiakin's Garden Program will serve families on or near the Yakama Nation reservation, where there is food insecurity and limited access to healthy food. The effort will cultivate community gardens using the traditional history of the original gardens grown by Chief Kamiakin in the 1840s.
- Diné be’ iiná, Inc., Window Rock, Arizona, $27,000 – The Sheep-to-Table project will help retain and share traditional Navajo foodways. Navajo families will gain an understanding of food sources and how survival skills are embedded in tribal traditions. It will involve gathering, documenting and sharing vanishing knowledge of wild edible plants, cooking techniques, and traditional butchering and shepherding practices.
- Flowering Tree Permaculture Institute, Española, New Mexico, $21,000 – The grant will support expansion of the Pueblo Food Experience/Kwi-tewah project, an effort that has included building traditional adobe ovens, a traditional bread house, and a women's ceremonial house. The project is about returning to a diet of original foods for health purposes, while keeping native seeds and traditional crops alive and supporting spiritual and ceremonial life.
- Fort Belknap Community Economic Development Corporation, Harlem, Montana, $35,000 – The Red Paint Creek Kitchen Project will create a commercial kitchen to increase the food capacity for the Red Paint Creek Trading Post and satisfy the healthy food needs of the Lodge Pole community. The kitchen will allow for locally-grown food preparation and preservation, as well as culinary classes.
- Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, Peshawbestown, Michigan, $35,000 – The Edible Forest Project will launch the first phase of planting on at least 20 acres of new, public forest gardens for tribal members and the wider community. A plant nursery and seed bank will be started to offer plants and seeds to tribal members to grow themselves. Free food, water and ecology workshops will be offered.
- Indigenous ReGeneration, Valley Center, California, $35,000 – The grant will support establishment of an educational outdoor space for Native youth to provide regenerative living concepts. Indigenous ReGeneration, the San Pasqual Education Department and the Ecology Center will operate the space with programming that includes food cultivation, medicinal farming, and culture and eco-village education. The project will also increase access to fresh fruits and vegetables on the reservation.
- Laulima Kuha'o, Lanai City, Hawaii, $35,000 – The project will help develop Lanai's food systems and will help address the needs of Native Hawaiian agricultural producers and families by providing access to food though production development and building a Community Mala 'Ai (food garden).
- Ma Ka Hana Ka 'Ike, Hana, Hawaii, $35,000 – The Mahele Farm program reclaims ancestral abundance through the community-based production of local, healthy and organic foods, including traditional staple foods such as kalo (taro). The foods are shared according to Native Hawaiian systems of reciprocity, thus decreasing the community's food insecurity.
- North Leupp Family Farms, Inc., Leupp, Arizona, $35,000 – North Leupp Family Farms is a small cooperative with about 100 acres of land cultivated by 30 family farmers. It aims to develop solutions to deficiencies in the community food system, encourage healthy lifestyles, and promote food security. It is developing a business plan for a local food enterprise to aggregate, process, store, market and distribute fresh, locally grown vegetables.
- Pueblo of Nambé, Nambé Pueblo, New Mexico, $15,000 – The grant will help the Community Farm Project in its continued expansion and field renewal. It will help increase production of healthy and nutritious food for this isolated food desert while also helping revitalize and retain traditional farming knowledge, language and culture.
- Tewa Women United, Santa Cruz, New Mexico, $35,000 – The Española Healing Foods Oasis project serves northern New Mexico. It will provide opportunities for this distressed area to experience sustainable agriculture while expanding knowledge of the linkages between foods, Native cultures and food justice through community education workshops, forums and mentoring on dry-land farming techniques, water catchment and other topics.
- Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation, Porcupine, South Dakota, $30,000 – The grant supports the Food Sovereignty Initiative that aims to improve food access, nutrition and public health on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation while decreasing the economic burden on low-income families. It will help build out the Sustainable Agriculture Demonstration Center to provide educational opportunities.
- Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Belcourt, North Dakota, $16,000 – The Healthy Foods Healthy Families project aims to address the needs of the Turtle Mountain community by establishing and expanding healthy foods initiatives while exploring new partnerships and economic opportunities in agribusiness.
About First Nations Development Institute
For more than 36 years, using a three-pronged strategy of educating grassroots practitioners, advocating for systemic change, and capitalizing Indian communities, First Nations has been working to restore Native American control and culturally-compatible stewardship of the assets they own – be they land, human potential, cultural heritage, or natural resources – and to establish new assets for ensuring the long-term vitality of Native American communities. First Nations serves Native American communities throughout the United States. For more information, visit www.firstnations.org.
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Program Contact:
A-dae Romero-Briones, First Nations Associate Director of Research and Policy, Native Agriculture
(303) 774-7836 x212 or abriones@firstnations.org
Media Contact:
Randy Blauvelt, First Nations Senior Communications Officer
(303) 774-7836 x213 or rblauvelt@firstnations.org