Cultural Regeneration Efforts with FAST Blackfeet
In Browning, MT, FAST Blackfeet is using soil, soup, and stories to reconnect with healthy and traditional foods and bring generations together toward a better future. For the Blackfeet Nation and other indigenous peoples, the need to reconnect to food is a direct consequence of the loss of language, land, and traditional knowledge. FAST Blackfeet is a nonprofit dedicated to healing these relationships by improving food security, providing nutrition education, and reclaiming and building food sovereignty within the Blackfeet Nation. Their programs, while designed to regrow relationships with food, also provide rare spaces for people of different ages to interact–re-generation.
During their two-year Growing Health program, participants learn the basics of how to grow and process their own food. While visiting various locations on the Blackfeet Nation, they’re instructed by elders and cultural knowledge keepers about sustainable and respectful wild harvesting methods, mindfulness practices, and traditional plant usages, and hear culturally significant stories and lessons. At the end of each season, participants have the opportunity to contribute to the wellness of their community by donating or selling any excess produce or tea back to the pantry. Many continue to grow their own gardens after completing the program, passing on the acquired knowledge and interest to others.
Keshawna Yazzie-Wolftail has experienced the benefits of these programs firsthand. Having grown up amidst the consequences of disconnection and lack of access to traditional foods, she wanted a healthier future for her children. This led her to join the Growing Health program. “My son was around two at the time, and he was able to help us plant the starter plants, come out and water with me, and just be around it. And I thought, ‘This is really special because I never grew up having this. I never grew up going with my mom into our garden and watering plants and watching them grow,’” recalls Keshawna. Growing Health provided her with foundational knowledge about gardening, identifying wild foods, cooking healthy, culturally significant meals and teas, and opportunities to pass on knowledge to loved ones.
“I noticed that people are really doing it with their families. The little kids are so interested in it,” says Marissa Bremner, FAST’s Growing Health Program Manager, “That’s where I see it shaping our future generations–we’re bringing back that knowledge of plants right to people’s homes, recreating something that might have been lost for a while…making a connection for the different generations.”
After completing the Growing Health program, Keshawna continued to influence the health of those around her as FAST Blackfeet’s Nutrition Education Manager, drawing on her own experiences to lead others toward a more holistically healthy lifestyle through nutrition education classes. “I wanted to be a part of helping our community in a meaningful way so that when my kids get older, it’ll be a different reality than it is now.”
Recognizing that one part of regenerating culture, as well as health, is to create opportunities for generations to spend time together, FAST’s nutrition programs often encourage the mixing of different age groups. Cooking classes teach children and parents alike meal preparation skills that can be easily implemented at home. During another program, Soup and Stories, a meal is prepared using culturally significant ingredients, some of which were grown by Growing Health participants, and then enjoyed while elders pass on their knowledge and traditional stories.
“It’s a really special thing to have both elders and kids in the same space because they’re two separate energies, but they complement each other really well,” says Keshawna.
To learn more about the efforts Keshawna and FAST Blackfeet are making to regenerate connection to land, food, tradition, and each other, and about their other programs, visit fastblackfeet.org. In your own communities, look for ways to learn about how your food is grown, share it with others, and connect with the generations before and after. Doing so will change our future.
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