Many of us are trained to believe that resilience means toughing it out, going it alone, and suppressing our fears. In this time of multiple pandemics, we experience true resilience as leaning into interdependence and vulnerability, and connecting to the wisdom of the land, our ancestors, and our loving communities for support. Kiani says, “2020 taught me about community resilience, solidarity, and mutual aid. I have been reminded of mycelium as the underground network of mushrooms that allows plants to talk to each other, share nutrients, and other resources. Our community has found ways to work together, grow food, and deepen connections to each other.”
Despite experiencing a very short season of four frost-free months, we worked hard in collaboration with the land to supply more than 1,000 boxes of fresh produce, as well as meat, eggs, medicinal herbs and value-added products, at no-cost to families living under food apartheid through our Solidarity Share program. Our continued commitment to Afro-Indigenous climate resilient practices, such as maintaining a high level of crop diversity, using low and no-till practices, building silvopasture, and mulching, enabled us to feed our communities despite climate instability.
We cultivated and saved seeds for TrueLove Seeds and in collaboration with Warren Mihtukwsun of the Stockbridge-Munsee Mohican Nation as an act of resilience within honor of that legacy and an unshakeable hope for the future.
As food supply chains were disrupted during the pandemic, we expanded our Soul Fire in the City program to support 44 families in our community to establish raised-bed home gardens by offering materials, seedlings, soil, labor, and ongoing assistance. We see this work as a continuation of the legacy of a long lineage of BIPOC growers who developed alternative food systems to sustain their own communities.
Larisa “felt proud of how Soul Fire’s alumni and ‘ecosystem’ partners – such as Black Farmers United NYS, Black Farmer Fund, Corbin Hill Food Project, Farm School NYC, and Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust – strengthened the connective tissues of mutuality and care, forming powerful links for food, medicine, seeds, support, and other resources to reach their communities.” In rapid response to the pandemic, we co-hosted 10 BIPOC Farmers COVID-19 Skillshares from March through June and compiled an ever-growing resource list to support our farming community. We engaged in more than 150 partnerships and 40 alumni mentorship efforts this year that included consultations, policy initiatives like the Justice for Black Farmers Act, curriculum sharing, and moving resources to alumni and BIPOC farming and food justice organizations.
Despite not being able to gather together in person, our public speaking and training reached over 30,000 people through our Uprooting Racism workshops, Ask a Sista Farmer show, media appearances, keynotes, and workshops. We developed the 3D series for BIPOC to deepen skills in specific farming practices from agroforestry to mushroom cultivation. We released our Liberation on Land Video Skillshare series on Youtube, a heart-felt reflection of our peoples’ intricate, intergenerational care for the land.
Our infrastructure is vital to our food sovereignty work. From the new employee duplex cabin, to our completed bath house for program guests, we made many exciting campus developments this year to better accommodate our program participants and our staff’s wellbeing. Your generosity is allowing us to Fortify Our Foundation by constructing a program center, guest lodge, classroom, and commercial drinking water and wastewater systems.
We hope that we will all emerge from the immense challenges of 2020 with our beloved community strengthened, and our resolve to see one another’s full humanity unshaken. Like the forest superorganism, our resilience is rooted in our collective power.
Kiani, Justin, Naima, Cheryl, Larisa, Jonah, Leah, Ria, Brooke, Neshima, Emet, Lytisha, Azure, Dayo, and Wendelin