As warm tears rolled down our cheeks and reached our lips, salty as ocean water, we reached for the hand of our neighbor. Whispering collective prayers to the land in our mother tongues as the clouds began to part overhead. We started to march towards the capitol building. Gray skies making way for blue and big beams of golden light kissing the hopeful faces of farm owners, workers, advocates and allies. This crucial Farm Bill year brought us into deeper connection and solidarity work with partners such as HEAL Food Alliance and fellow local farmers like Nadia and Omowale of Liberation Farm. Marching onward, hand in hand, as gray skies parted and golden sunlight drenched our skin.
More than ever before, Soul Fire Farm has witnessed the clouds part and streams of radiant light renew our belief in this sacred mission of uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system. With over 27,000 people in our community this year, all committed to the tenure of land and expansion of food sovereignty, we are not alone.
The core of this work took place on our 80-acres of mountainside land in Mohican territory. Here, we grew food and medicine for our Solidarity Share program, sharing naturally-grown farm products with 204 people weekly and providing 1,600 farm-to-table meals to program participants.
Our work didn’t stop at growing and sharing food, however. This year we equipped more than 200 BIPOC farmers and land stewards with land-based skills by hosting a total of 19 training events. Learners heralding from all across the globe, visited the farm to immerse in Afro-Indigenous earth wisdom, participating in offerings like the FIRE immersion (Farming in Relationship with Earth), Farm-to-Table immersion, plant medicine/botanical trainings, builders daylong workshop, youth programs, and Work & Learn days. The rising generations of farmer-activists gained tangible land-based skills in a culturally relevant context. Our team strove for a balance of diligence and joyful abandon, which was perhaps most evident in our SOULstice and Equilibrium festivals. Attained with the sun’s cycles, we gathered in person for live music, dancing, healing movement, and tender reunion.
Our constellation of solidarity partners extends beyond this one place, and we were honored to continue collaborating with coalitions like Black Farmers United, HEAL Food Alliance, Ujamaa Seed Cooperative, and National Black Food and Justice Alliance to advance our freedom dreams. Thanks to funds from our partners at RAFI-USA, we re-granted $17,925 to community members actively involved in advocating for food, land, and agriculture-related policies. We continued to incubate the Braiding Seeds Fellowship as this 18-month program of wrap-around support entered its third year. In addition to onboarding the new cohort, we also regranted a total of $50,000 to the fellowship network including the establishment of an emergency fund for fellows.
We are investing deeply in our organizational and physical infrastructure so that we can continue to meet the needs of our movement as it expands. Campus construction is developing as 2023 saw the final phase of construction take huge leaps with the completion of the Office, the Program Center anticipated move-in this winter, and the Abode well underway. Our team didn’t shy away from the demands of caring for the land and campus, with everything from a major farm field edge reclamation project and wood chipping carbon capture, to lime washing the Hive exterior. We were even able to share our skills in a day-long carpentry workshop. Soon, our community will have dignified, accessible, and ecologically sustainable spaces to learn, eat, sleep, and gather while kindling our land-based aspirations.
We thank you for your support. Your continued faith in this mission fortifies us to withstand the hazy skies and march onward until the clouds part and dawn breaks. We could not exist without you!
Free the People! Free the Land!
Briana, Brooke, Cheryl, Clara, Crysta, Danielle, Hana’, Hillary, Ife, Jonah, Kai, Leah, Maya, Naima, O’den, Ria, Shay, and Susuyu (Soul Fire Farm); Lulu and Sarah (Braiding Seeds)