by Micheal Rios, Tulalip News
From 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m. on Friday, May 29, Tulalip community volunteers teamed up with the Wisdom Warriors to participate in the Tulalip Health Clinic’s second ‘Grow your own fruits, vegetables and edible flowers’ community event. The volunteers came together at the Tulalip Bay Wellness Garden and Trail to grow food and community.
The Tulalip Health Clinic’s Diabetes Program is determined to teach the tribal membership how to live a healthy lifestyle that minimizes the risk of diabetes and welcomes any and all community volunteers to become a part of the Wellness Garden. Sponsored by the Diabetes Program, volunteers are provided with seeds, plants, apple trees, blueberry bushes, and raspberry vines among various other fruits and vegetables that are then planted in the Wellness Garden. Master gardeners from Washington State University along with local gardening experts were on hand to answer questions and provide useful gardening tips whenever necessary.
“It’s an opportunity for the people to come back and work with the Earth, their cultural lands and restore it,” says Veronica “Roni” Leahy, Diabetes Program Coordinator of the community gardening events. “The land, this place, is what deserves the recognition. We’re just caretakers and we’re doing what we can to take care of it. Just like we do in the Health Clinic. No different from what we are doing for people on the inside of Health Clinic to restore health, we’re doing the same for people and this land on the outside of the Health Clinic.”
One of the many highlights of the day’s event was the opening of the Wisdom Warrior produce stand. With the assistance of the Diabetes Program, the Wisdom Warriors set up a produce stand on the sidewalk of Totem Beach Road, alongside the Wellness Garden, to give away free organic produce. The purpose of the produce stand is primarily to ensure the produce grown in the Wellness Garden goes out to the community and to give community members a convenient sample to add organic vegetables to their diet
Every person who walked by or drove by and stopped at the produce stand was given a bag of freshly harvested vegetables. Amongst the vegetable bounty were carrots, cucumbers, zucchini, onions, various herbs, kale and lettuce. The kale and lettuce were harvested from the Wellness Garden, while the other vegetables are grown in the Wellness Garden they were not ready to harvest. Instead the not yet ready to harvest vegetables were purchased locally to demonstrate what vegetables are currently being grown.
The Wisdom Warriors estimate they gave away 60+ bags of fresh organic produce to community members.
Contact Micheal Rios, mrios@tualiptribes-nsn.gov