Homestead & Farm
Impact
Landstewardship
Healing Generational Trauma
Access & Equity?
Why
For healing to begin...
It isnt enough to see people that look like us do it, we need to see/experience people that look like us thriving & empowered while doing it...
-
Access to food can increase our likelihood to SURVIVE... but is "surviving" enough? ...
Safe reflective opportunities in land stewardship help to empower access & equity and is an important step to healing marginalized communities...
-
Access to WHOLE foods can increase our likelihood to THRIVE... but is that "access" continued, equitable & sustainable?
-
Access to land stewardship (growing your own) can make thriving sustainable, fueling, and empowering our community's continued likelihood to ACTUALIZE...
“...thriving & empowered...”
Generational
Trauma
Counteracting
History & Reality of Land Workers
Long days, Low wages, Sun beaten bodies, afforded few other options has been the reality of many land-workers of color. We hope to foster a farm experience that allows for a narrative shift to take place, a place where land stewardship and liberation stand hand in hand.
Instead of land stewardship being something that has honorably sustained our generations, it has often left trauma, and scars throughout our lineages as our ancestors grew things they themselves might never have access to eat for people that don’t often realize they exist.
Whether it is the history of the north atlantic slave trade, that beat and broke African bodies in fields across many lands & languages; black & brown bodies exploited modern day, in agricultural systems all around the world; or post colonial countries that utilize locals as cheap farm labor to fuel tourism & export economies; our world has a history of normalizing and turing land stewardship into something to be escaped, risen above, left behind for the sake of pride, modernity, and opportunity.
Stewardship
Liberating
Land
What does liberated land stewardship mean to us?
For us it means, we choose to be here, as family, and close friends and we proudly steward this land together.
We feed ourselves, we feed our families, and we feed our customers and we are fortunate that there is no quiet owner above us, no middle man between us, no one exploiting us for their personal gain; this is our dream, and we set the pace of our days, set our goals, dare to dream and in this business we triumph and fail together; we sink or swim TOGETHER, we make/grow what we sell together; and we fight for each other's future every time we step onto this farm in the morning and face the: caribbean sun, torrential downpours, absolutely relentless pests pressures, unexpected crop failures, seemingly insurmountable projects, TOGETHER, and only because we choose to: for ourselves, for each other, for our families, for our future generations, and for you .
“We proudly steward this land together”
We are proud of the line of land stewards we come from and are proud to be standing here breaking ancestral chains, as an example to others, that look like us, that stewarding the land is a gift; a way back home; a road to a better life; an art of love, a birthright that should have never been exploited, something we shouldn’t of had to leave behind, and a labor of great beauty & pride. We hope that our people can find their way to, or back to a land stewardship that feeds them, heals them, and makes them feel empowered rather than fearful, or unseen.
Kinfolk
Reconnecting
Reconnecting across land & sea: A people divided
We are proud to be a team that has Dominican, Haitian, and African American blood running through our veins. In truth we are cousins separated by: three languages; oceans/borders; and a world that would prefer us to hate ourselves and each other when, In truth, we share similar trauma, diasporic & indigenous roots, foods, customs, ways of healing, ways of cooking, and ways of growing. We hope to be a place where people of color that are hoping to learn and heal can come to reconnect to the land; or experience the nuances in our shared but differing roads to the present, and celebrate the reunification of our shared heritage and culture.
Rediscovering
Our
Roots
Decolonizing land stewardship
Ancestral Food Ways
Reconnecting people of color with their foods of origin with a special focus on the post slave trade African diaspora, and indigenous food ways
Plant Medicine
Reconnecting people of color with their native and natural plant medicines
Sacred Partnership
Learning and participating in land stewardship outside of the lens of forced, coerced, or socioeconomically obligated and learning to view it as a sacred partnership with the land, caring for her so that she can in return care for us too.
Falling Back
Love
In
With
Land
The
Destigmatizing land stewardship
-
No one walks enthusiastically through a door shrouded in shame and trauma
-
Building trust with the idea starts with an example
-
We believe that land stewardship is a way to create health, wellness and access for ourselves and our families, BUT because our histories are so filled with trauma in connection with land stewardship many of our people have fled from it to escape those traumas, and as a result have distanced themselves generationally from the practice as a whole.
-
We know that we can’t just tell you: it’s worth the toil; feels like home; or that you should JUST BE proud. Healing trauma and fostering reconnection takes time, you have to see it and feel it for yourself.
An Invitation of hope...
So we invite you to come learn from us, feel what it’s like to feed your friends and family with us; taste the difference; see people that look like you empowered; and feel the sense of pride in knowing that although it took work, and probably perseverance, you fostered life where there wasn’t, and it feels like home because our people once lived freely in closeness and communion with land that fed us and that reconnection feels familiar for positive reasons also..
Self actualization is much easier to attained when you feel safe, fed, confident, and self knowledgeable, a mentor of mine once said “ knowledge of self history gives you identity”. In this way agriculture can be a vehicle to reconnect to: where we come from; feeling proud of the skin we walk in; and the ways, & medicines of the ancestors that fought and survived so that we could someday thrive. Which is important work for the advancement of people of color; what better place to explore that healing than on a farm that brings together a handful of Liberated Land-workers of color, separated by colonization, reunited on a farm by a dream, and together: reuniting, sharing, & preserving their traditions; while defining & fighting for their shared future; and stewarding land with love and pride.
Opening doors to wellness & wholeness
&
Health
Healing
Access
