For me, forgiveness and compassion are always linked: how do we hold people accountable for wrongdoing and yet at the same time remain in touch with their humanity enough to believe in their capacity to be transformed?
bell hooks
Greetings Beloved Community,
February has been full of fervor, and we have so much to share with you!
We are excited to introduce new members to the Soul Fire team. Applications are open for the Braiding Seeds Fellowship (providing beginning farmers with resources, professional development, and mentorship), Soul FIRE Immersion (providing 5-day farmer training for BIPOC) and Soul Fire in the City (providing raised bed gardens to community members and groups in the 518).
The campus is evolving, and the Soul Fire Land Coop is growing…
Read more juicy details, updates and invitations below!
With all our hearts,
Azuré, Briana, Brooke, Cheryl, Danielle, Hillary, Ife, Jonah, Kai, Leah, Naima, Ria and Shay
Welcome New Team Members!
Hillary Gaeta – Office Manager
Hillary Gaeta (she/her/ella) is passionate about envisioning and working towards a world where people are healed by self-determination and collaboration in justice. She rejoices in the memories of growing up in the Dominican Republic: learning about her ancestors’ ties to farming, running barefoot through the lush vegetation of her ancestral land and climbing trees to snack on mangoes and cherries. Her experiences informed her of the importance of language, food sovereignty and the ways in which they are inextricably tied to the land.
Shay Collins – Administrative Program Director
Shay Collins is an Afro-Caribbean, multi-racial, blerd (black nerd) hailing from the Land of the Free by the Carib Sea, Belize. They were introduced to plant magic by their grandmother whose hobbies include collecting cuttings from everything to propagate. Growing up in a intergenerational community informed their politics and sparked their deep commitment to being in right relationship with collective community and the land.
Briana Alfaro – Administrative Program Manager
Briana Alfaro (she/her) is a multiracial, Mexican, Indigenous grower, herbalist, writer, and activist from San Diego, living now on Onoñda’gegá’ land in Central New York. She delights in building community through food and farming—sparking warmth, healing, and transformation within herself and beyond. Briana previously held the Soil Carbon Field Researcher position at Soul Fire Farm and continues this work in her current role.
Danielle Peláez – Education Coordinator
Danielle (she/her/ella) is a farmer, educator, and land steward, based just outside of Troy. Danielle dreams of serving her community through connection to the soil. Her experiences in harm reduction, education, and community garden spaces in Washington DC and Baltimore, as well as her strong roots in Guatemala, all deeply inform her work. She loves being outside in all forms (gardening, hiking, camping, napping in hammocks) and sharing meals with friends.
We also celebrate our remarkable returning staff, some who are in new roles, and invite you to check out full team photos and bios here.
Applications are open for the Soul FIRE Immersion 2022!
This summer we’ll be hosting four, week-long sessions of our beloved farmer training program.
The Soul FIRE Immersion (Farming In Relationship to Earth) is designed for aspiring, beginning, and intermediate growers of Black, Indigenous, and Latinx heritage to gain basic skills in regenerative farming in a culturally relevant, supportive, and joyful environment. By the end of the program you will have the knowledge to grow and prepare your own food, and the tools to begin a comprehensive commercial farm training if you choose that path. It is our hope that you will also deepen your connection to land, heal from inherited trauma rooted in oppression on land, and take steps toward your personal food sovereignty.
Read the full program description before applying, and spread the word!
2/22/22 – applications open
4/1/22 – priority deadline
4/15/22 – applications close
To free ourselves we must feed ourselves
Soul Fire in the City provides raised bed gardens to community members and groups in the 518 (Albany, Schenectady, and Troy areas). Soul Fire Farm offers materials, seedlings, soil, labor, and ongoing guidance at no-cost to support folks to grow their own food and medicine towards self-reliance and community resilience. Our program centers people impacted by food apartheid, unemployment and COVID related challenges, and incarceration, and also centers refugees, immigrants, people with disabilities and chronic illness, elders, and families with children.
“The garden is a true gift to our mental health.”
~ Soul Fire in the City participant
Click here to apply for a raised bed garden at your household, grow in a community garden, or volunteer to support the program. The deadline to apply for a garden is March 13th. If you would like to volunteer to support Soul Fire in the City gardeners with land, labor, deliveries, or mentorship, please complete this form. Volunteer applications are rolling.
“This work is life-saving work.
Deep gratitude for making these tender sacred spaces for us.”
~ Uprooting Racism Participant
We all have a significant and intrinsic role to play in uprooting racism in the food system, and the good news is that there are many right answers to the questions, “What can I do to help?” We’ve been deep diving into this question and sharing solidarity strategies far and wide.
Our Uprooting Racism in the Food System trainings continue to be powerful! & WE HAVE TWO MORE SESSIONS COMING UP!
Register for one of our FINAL trainings until the Fall, on March 3 and March 16.
You can also check out our Actions Steps to uproot racism in the food system here.
Ask A Sista Farmer
We kick off the 2022 Ask A Sista Farmer season with Dr. Muhjah Shakir, founder of Nature’s Garden for Victory and Peace, a holistic, intentional, and transformative learning community for the health and healing of the people and the land in Tuskegee, Alabama.
Join us on Friday, March 4th, 4:00-4:40 ET on instagram live @soulfirefarm
“Ask a Sista Farmer” is a free online show that supports people who want to grow their own food and medicine for self-reliance and community resilience. Each show features experienced Black womxn farmers dropping their knowledge about gardening, livestock, agroforestry, plant medicine, and food preservation. Learn More
To sign up to be a guest presenter on Ask a Sista Farmer, please fill out this form.
Check out past episodes here (IGTV) and here (FB). Full list of past episodes here.
2022-2023 FELLOWSHIP APPLICATION LAUNCH!
2022-2023 fellowship applications will open on March 1st. Over the next few months we will be doing Instagram Live and Zoom sessions with Leah, Selection Committee members, and fellows to provide more information about the fellowship. We hope to have our first IG live on 3/1 with Leah and the Federation of South Cooperatives.
If you allow yourself to get very still and listen deeply, you can almost hear the sap rising in the sugar maples and black birches, heralding the nearness of spring. For the farm team, we are in the final weeks of winter scramble to get everything ready for long muddy March days outdoors again.
Ria is garbling and packing the last of our autumn herbs into tea blends, and concocting bright and scrumptious jams from the remaining frozen berries. Leah is finalizing orders of the season’s farm supplies, pruning trees and blueberries, and tending to the goats and chickens. Brooke is organizing our unwieldy seed collection into neat bins and wrapping up the list of 2022 Solidarity Share members, one of whom we are especially excited to highlight…
A big shout out to Trayvon Jackson for catalyzing a Black-owned grocery store in Albany’s South End, the very neighborhood where the idea for Soul Fire Farm was born. We are thrilled to be able to offer some of the land’s harvest in partnership with this new community institution.
We are right in the middle of installing the foundation for the addition to our new office on site. It’s my (Kai) first time witnessing and working on a concrete foundation…
And I’m really diggin’ it.
I wasn’t expecting to enjoy it so much. I’m aware that concrete is one of the most energy intensive building materials out there. In fact, the production of cement, a key ingredient in concrete, is second only to transportation in global greenhouse emissions. Not to mention wet concrete is caustic to the skin and requires heavy duty machinery to mix and pour at this scale. All these factors generally do not appeal to me.
I’m quite attached to the idea of natural building being non-toxic, carbon neutral, and beneficial for the planet instead of harmful. For this reason, we design all our buildings to use the minimal amount of cement while creating a lasting structure. Foundations are the most important part of a building and one that is typically almost entirely unseen. Even though it’s the first step of construction, to do it right, we have to think about all the steps that follow.
Concrete is made mostly of aggregate rock and sand with a small portion of cement mixed with water. It’s poured wet into wooden forms encasing a steel rebar skeleton. Within a few hours it starts to solidify, producing heat as it cures, getting exponentially stronger in its first few days, but then continuing to gain strength for the rest of its life. If done right, it will form a foundation that anchors a building for millenia.
I guess the longevity piece is what won me over despite my earth-loving sensibilities. There are not many materials I know of that have such monumental capacity. And when integrated into a design that considers efficient energy use, carbon neutrality, and longevity… as long as we have good boundaries, I suppose concrete can kick it with me!
LAND COOP AND RIGHTS OF NATURE
In 2019, we put our 80-acres of land into a cooperative housing association where every resident is a voting member of the governing board, nature has veto power over decisions via divination, and the Mohican Nation is granted a perpetual cultural respect easement to this part of their homelands. Soul Fire Farm Institute Inc. (the nonprofit organization) is one of the member-tenants of the coop, alongside others who live and work here.
Coops, land trusts, and easements are among the tools that people of conscience have used to try to preserve and share lands previously fractured by private ownership and market speculation. We chose a coop structure because it’s important to us that these sacred lands be used for cultural and ecological purposes for generations to come, and that there is a democratic process for making decisions about the land.
Currently, the Soul Fire Farm Coop is purchasing adjacent properties and looking to bring new neighbors into the community. To learn more about the coop and get involved, please visit https://bit.ly/sffcoop
The Praxis series reflects on how our community can best put our values into action, sharing resources, ideas, and practice toward collective liberation. These will be shared each month in Love Notes and also on social media.
Reignbeaux & Sovereign Earthworks
This month we’re celebrating SFF alumn Reignbeaux Vargas and their project Sovereign Earthworks. Sovereign Earthworks is a cooperative/constellation of Trans, Queer, Two-Spirit, Gender-Expansive, Black & Indigenous Folx in DC that is rooted in divine connection to Earth Mother and nourished by the medicine of our ancestors.
They have recently launched their free CSA feeding 40 households in the District. They have also recently partnered with Chesapeake Bay Trust to make their growing spaces more accessible and increase food production by 35%. Their goal is to make their farming operation as accessible as possible to meet the needs of the community. You can find more about their work at their websiteor become a patron on their Patreon!
The online shop has been restocked with beautiful new handcrafted items made from the gifts of the land. This month we’re featuring our Deep Relaxation Bath that contains chamomile, blue vervain, lavender, and marigold wrapped in pure epsom salt for a deeply relaxing bath time experience.
Corbin Hill Food Project is hiring!
– Communications Associate
– Lead Organizer
– Logistics & Procurement Organizer
Real Organic Project is hiring!
– Development Director
– Development Manager
Kite’s Nest is hiring!
– River City Garden Manager
- Profile in Grounded Solutionists with Leah Penniman
- Podcast on Stepping Into Truth with Leah Penniman
- Podcast on Feeding America: Elevating Voices, Ending Hunger with Cheryl Whilby and Naima Penniman
Upcoming Events
Ask a Sista Farmer – March 4th, 2022 – 4:00 PM
Mama Muhjah of Nature’s Garden for Victory and Peace and Leah Penniman
“Ask a Sista Farmer” is a free online show that supports people who want to grow their own food and medicine for self-reliance and community resilience. Each show features experienced Black womxn farmers dropping their knowledge about gardening, livestock, agroforestry, plant medicine, and food preservation. FOLLOW & WATCH
March 6th, 2022 – 11 AM – 1 PM EST
NOFA Rhode Island Conference
Leah Penniman – Regenerative Agriculture
Regenerative Agriculture claims to offer solutions to our agricultural and land care problems, such as soil erosion and depletion, weed and pest abundance and pesticide tolerance, nutrient supply and availability, proper ecological roles for farm animals, and more. Can it deliver on these promises? At our Winter Conference this season we will explore these issues with several leaders in the arena of regenerative and sustainable agriculture over the course of two panel discussions moderated by Rhode Island farmer John Kenny.
March 29th, 2022 – March 30th, 2022
New Horizons Conference at Yale
Leah Penniman – details forthcoming
The conference is an annual gathering of students and early career professionals who are historically underrepresented in the environmental field and/ or committed to diversity, equity, and inclusion in the field. The conference features an impressive array of nationally recognized speakers who will cover a range of topics such as energy justice, food justice, land rights and reparations, climate justice, diversity and inclusion, transportation justice, disaster and resilience, environmental enforcement, environmental quality, just transitions, and sustainability.
March 29th, 2022 – 5:30 PM – 6:30 PM EST
Michigan State University
Naima Penniman – Uprooting Racism Keynote and Q&A
This year’s theme will investigate systems of power that maintain racial stratification throughout the Americas. Since the last conference in 2019, many events have heightened public awareness and interest in state-sponsored brutality — from the murder of George Floyd and countless others to the aggravated health and economic disparities made evident during the COVID-19 pandemic to an increased awareness of voter suppression and other racial injustices. This year’s featured speakers include Vijay Prashad, director of Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research; Naima Penniman, co-founder of Soul Fire Farm; Keisha-Khan Perry, Presidential Penn Compact Associate Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Pennsylvania; and shane bernardo, co-founder of Food as Healing.
Oppression underwrites our food system, and a tangible action to address food sovereignty in our communities is taking reparations into our own hands through the creation of the Reparations Map for Black-Indigenous Farmers. We recognize that the food system was built on the stolen land and stolen labor of Black, Indigenous, Latinx, Asian and other people of color. We also know that we cannot wait for the government to acknowledge that stolen wealth and land must be returned. Some farmers have already received funding through this project, and we want to provide that opportunity to other Black and Brown farmers. If you have resources you want to share contact a farmer directly to share them, or if you have a project you want to include on the map contact Northeast Farmers of Color!