Native Golfer Earns Spot in U.S. Open, Call from Notah Begay

Indian Country Today Media Network

It’s official: Jesse Smith, Mohawk from Six Nations, has qualified for the U.S. Open, the second major golf tournament of the season.

Smith, 33, who has golfed professionally for seven years, played his way into the U.S.’s national championship by finishing in the top four at a sectional qualifying round staged at Century Country Club in Purchase, New York on June 3. This will be Smith’s first appearance in a major–and in a PGA Tour event. The last Native American to compete at the U.S. Open was Jeff Curl, Wintu, son of former PGA Tour player Rod Curl, according to Stephen Tooshkenig, the president of ST Golf, which works with Native golfers to develop their game.

According to ST Golf, Smith has traveled the globe searching for a spot on the world’s biggest golf stage, the PGA Tour. He has competed on the Canadian Tour, Nationwide Tour, and international events. A humble golfer from New Hampshire, Smith has firm family roots planted in Ohsweken/Six Nations  (“I actually lived up there last year with them while I played the Canadian (PGA) Tour,” Smith recently told Golfweek.). He has assisted with ST Golf golf clinics which develops the golfer from top to bottom. As a professional golfer Smith has been focused on helping Indian country reach new levels through his drive and dedication to the game of golf.

And as Smith has strengthened his ties to his Six Nations roots, he’s also reached out to a major Native golfing star: Notah Begay, Navajo/San Felipe/Isleta, a four-time PGA Tour winner. (Related: Tiger Woods to Join Notah Begay III for NB3 Foundation Challenge)

According to Golfweek, Smith called Begay last year. “Prepared to leave a voice mail, Smith was stunned when Begay answered the call and not only listened to a tale of frustration from a struggling professional, but offered advice. They’ve become friends, and when the news of what happened in Purchase made the rounds, one of the first calls to Smith was from Begay.”

Through this excitement, Smith is enjoying it all.  “It really is a great feeling,” he said. “A bit overwhelming, but I’m dealing with that now and it’s all positives.”

The 113th U.S. Open Championship begins Thursday, June 13, at Merion Golf Club in Ardmore, Pennsylvania. Smith’s scheduled  starting time is 2:42 p.m./ET. Follow the action online at USOpen.com. ESPN and NBC will split the coverage on the tournament’s opening day; check your local listings for details.

 

Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/06/10/native-golfer-earns-spot-us-open-call-notah-begay-149813

Putting the culture back in agriculture: Reviving native food and farming traditions

A family on the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners area of the Southwest makes kneel down bread, a traditional food made with blue corn. Photo: Brett Ramney.
A family on the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners area of the Southwest makes kneel down bread, a traditional food made with blue corn. Photo: Brett Ramney.

By Tory Field and Beverly Bell, Toward Freedom

“At one point ‘agriculture’ was about the culture of food. Losing that culture, in favor of an American cultural monocrop, joined with an agricultural monocrop, puts us in a perilous state…” says food and Native activist Winona LaDuke. [i]

Her lament is an agribusiness executive’s dream. The CEO of the H.J. Heinz Company said, “Once television is there, people, whatever shade, culture, or origin, want roughly the same things.”[ii] The same things are based on the same technology, same media sources, same global economy, and same food.

Together with the loss of cultural diversity, the growth of industrial agriculture has led to an enormous depletion in biodiversity. Throughout history, humans have cultivated about7,000 species of plants. In the last century, three-quarters of the genetic diversity of agricultural crops have been lost. Thirty crops now provide 95% of our food needs, with rice, wheat, maize, and potato alone providing 60%. Eighty-five percent of the apple varieties that once existed in the US have been lost. Vast fields of genetically identical crops are much more susceptible to pests, necessitating increased pesticide use. The lack of diversity also endangers the food supply, as an influx of pests or disease can wipe out enormous quantities of crops in one fell swoop.

Native peoples’ efforts to protect their crop varieties and agricultural heritage in the US go back 500 years to when the Spanish conquistadors arrived. Today, Native communities throughout the US are reclaiming and reviving land, water, seeds, and traditional food and farming practices, thereby putting the culture back in agriculture and agriculture back in local hands.

One such initiative is the White Earth Land Recovery Project in Minnesota, which is recovering healthy stewardship of local tribes’ original land base. They are harvesting and selling traditional foods such as wild rice, planting gardens and raising greenhouses, and growing food for farm-to-school and feeding-our-elders programs. They are reintroducing native sturgeon to local waters as well as working to stop pesticide spraying at nearby industrial farms. They are also strengthening relationships with food sovereignty projects around the country. Winona LaDuke, the founding director of the project, told us, “My father used to say, ‘I don’t want to hear your philosophy if you can’t grow corn’… I now grow corn.”

Another revival effort involves buffalo herds. In the 1800s, European-American settlers drove wild buffalo close to extinction, decimating a source of survival for many Native communities. Just one example of the resurgence is theLakota Buffalo Caretakers Cooperative, a cooperative of small-family buffalo caretakers, on Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. The cooperative sees its work as threefold, to “restore the buffalo, restore the native ecology on Pine Ridge, and help renew the sacred connection between the Lakota people and the buffalo nation.” At the national level, the Inter-Tribal Bison Cooperative is a network of 56 tribal bison programs from around the country with a collective herd of over 15,000.

In New Mexico, Native communities are organizing a wealth of initiatives. Around the state, they have started educational and production farms, youth-elder farming exchanges, buffalo revitalization programs, seed-saving initiatives, herb-based diabetes treatment programs, a credit union that invests in green and sustainable projects, and more. Schools like the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute, the Institute of American Indian Arts, and the Santa Fe Indian School – along with grammar schools, high schools, and non-profit programs – have developed agricultural education programs. The Traditional Native American Farmers’ Association helps farmers get back onto the land, hosts workshops on seed saving and agricultural techniques, and has a youth program.

The annual Sustainable Food and Seed Sovereignty Symposium at the Tesuque [Indian] Pueblo in northern New Mexico brings together farmers, herbalists, natural dyers, healers, cooks, seed savers, educators, water protectors, and community organizers. From the 2006 symposium came the Declaration of Seed Sovereignty, which denounced genetically engineered seeds and corporate ownership of Native seeds and crops as “a continuation of genocide upon indigenous people and as malicious and sacrilegious acts toward our ancestry, culture, and future generations.”

In addition to the symposium, the Tesuque Pueblo also hosts Tesuque Natural Farms, which grows vegetables, herbs, grains, fruit trees, and cover crops, including varieties long lost to the region. The project is building a Native seed library. The overarching goal is to make the Pueblo autonomous in both food and seeds. Emigdio Ballon, Quechua farmer and geneticist at Tesuque Natural Farm, said, “The only way we can get our autonomy is when we have the resources in our own hands, when we don’t have to buy from seed companies.”

The farm provides fresh foods to the senior center, sells at the farmers’ markets, and trains residents to begin farming themselves. The farm also grows medicinal herbs to treat HIV, diabetes, and cancer, and makes biofertilizer from plants. The preschoolers at the Head Start program garden; grammar school students are beginning to, as well.

People from across the nation come to Tesuque Natural Farms to study agricultural production and to take workshops on pruning, beekeeping, poultry, soil fertility, composting, and other topics. Soon the farm hopes to create a research and education center, where people can come for three to six months.

Nayeli Guzman, a Mexica woman who worked at the farm, said, “What we’re doing is very simple. These ideas are not an alternative for us, they’re just a way of life… We need to all work together as land-based people.

“Creator is not exclusive, so there’s no reason we should be,” she said. “They tell us, ‘The more biodiversity you have, the richer your soil is going to be.’ It’s like that with people. The more different kinds of people you have, the more able we’re going to be to survive. We can’t compartmentalize ourselves. That’s what industrial agriculture does.”

 

Notes

[i] Winona LaDuke in “One Thing to Do About Food: A Forum,” Alice Waters, ed., The Nation, September 11, 2006, 18.

[ii] Sharon Beder, Global Spin: The Corporate Assault on Environmentalism (Devon: Green Books, 2002), 184.

Salmon using restored tidal channels in Skokomish Tidelands

Skokomish steelhead biologist Matt Kowalski and natural resources technician Aaron Johnson slowly drag a seine net through one of the small channels in the Skokomish Tidelands to gather a sample of marine life.
Skokomish steelhead biologist Matt Kowalski and natural resources technician Aaron Johnson slowly drag a seine net through one of the small channels in the Skokomish Tidelands to gather a sample of marine life.

Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission

The Skokomish Tribe has solid data showing how salmon are using the Skokomish Tidelands after a year of monitoring the 400-acre restored estuary.

While the tribe monitors the estuary year round, the first full year of sampling (December 2011 to November 2012) showed 20 fish species, including chinook, chum and coho salmon, using both the large and small tidal channels in the restored areas of the estuary.

Prior to 2006, the estuaries had been filled with fish-blocking culverts, dikes and roads for 70 years, preventing development of good fish habitat. Restoration started in 2007, which included removing man-made structures and opening historic tidal channels that allow juvenile fish to find places to feed and hide while heading out to the ocean.

“Chinook were found in 90 percent of the channels and chum were found in 100 percent of them,” said Matt Kowalski, the tribe’s steelhead biologist. “This proves that salmon have access to and are utilizing the restoration sites.”

All 20 different species were captured in large channels, while only nine different species were captured in small channels and were mostly salmon, stickleback and sculpins, he said.

“Some of the small channels are old drainage ditches that had limited fish access and others are completely newly formed channels from the restoration,” Kowalski said. “Over time, a more complex system of small channels will form and provide more and higher quality habitat for fish.”

In addition to fish monitoring, restoration work will continue this summer with more dike and culvert removal, connecting the restored 400-acre estuary to 600 acres of forested wetlands.

Indigenous resistance, arrests continue against fracking in New Brunswick

Susanne Patles in prayer, as New Brunswick RCMP confer. [Photo: M. Howe]
Susanne Patles in prayer, as New Brunswick RCMP confer. [Photo: M. Howe]

2 more charged as New Brunswickers rally against seismic testing

By Miles Howe, Halifax Media Co-op

ELSIPOGTOG, NEW BRUNSWICK, CANADA – About 25 RCMP officers in uniform, along with about a dozen police cruisers, today continued to flank equipment owned by gas exploration company SWN Resources Canada as they proceeded with their seismic testing of highway 126 in Kent County, New Brunswick.

Pushing the scattered crowd of Indigenous and non-Indigenous people back “50 metres distance” from the southward approaching seismic trucks – or ‘thumpers’ – the RCMP first arrested one demonstrator and chased another into the woods before arresting Susanne Patles.

Patles, a Mi’kmaq woman, had scattered a line of tobacco between herself and the approaching police, then proceeded to draw a circle of tobacco in the highway, where she then knelt and began to pray. After about two minutes, the police proceeded to arrest Patles. An officer Bernard noted that she was being charged with mischief.

Today’s two arrests follow another three made last Wednesday, when people again placed themselves in the path of SWN’s thumpers. Residents fear that the tests will lead to hydraulic fracturing – or fracking – of the area.

Lorraine Clair, arrested on Wednesday, continues to recover from nerve damage suffered from the rough treatment handed down on her by RCMP officers.

Patles_arrest
RCMP arrest Patles. [Photo: M. Howe]
Resistance to SWN’s presence, which is located in a part of traditional Mi’kma’ki territory known as Signigtog – or district 6 – has so far been strong. Thumper trucks have for days now been met with people who object to fracking from the surrounding communities, as well as supporters from around the Maritimes who are now beginning to flock towards the focal point of the highway.

Arctic melt spurs global spread of disease

By Kieran Cooke, Common Dreams

A cow grazing on the lush pasturelands of Cornwall in southwest England and a seal swimming in the ice cold waters of the Arctic might not appear to have much in common. The link between the two is tuberculosis, with a strain of the disease threatening cattle populations in Britain and elsewhere now showing up among seals in the high Arctic.

Dr Claire Heffernan, a trained vet and a specialist in global health and disease interaction between animals and humans, says that as the climate warms in Arctic regions, more and more diseases from Europe and elsewhere are spreading there, threatening both animal and human populations.

“In the past diseases might not have survived in the cold temperatures and the ice of the Arctic but as the region warms a new dynamic is introduced” Heffernan told Climate News Network.

“We need to fundamentally alter the way we look at disease in the context of climate change. We should recognize disease as a harbinger of a warming world.”

Dr Heffernan, a senior fellow at the Smith School for Enterprise and the Environment in Oxford and director of the livestock development group at the University of Reading says a wide variety of diseases have recently become evident among Arctic animal populations.

Toxoplasma, a parasite common in European cat populations, is now being found in polar bears in Greenland. Erysipelas, a disease of domestic pigs, is being found in Musk Oxen in the Canadian Arctic: the animals have also been found to have contracted Giardiasis, an intestinal parasite of humans. Meanwhile West Nile virus has been found in wolf pups in the Canadian Arctic.

Transmission

Such diseases could have been transmitted in a variety of ways, says Heffernan. The spread of Toxoplasma, for example, might be the result of people flushing cat faeces down toilets in the US and Europe which are then carried by tides to the Arctic. More people are visiting the region. Tourists defecating in the wilds might be the cause of the spread of Erysipelas.

“The Arctic is like a Heathrow airport in terms of bird, seal and other migration patterns so that’s another way disease is easily spread” says Heffernan.  “And the disease pathway is not all one way – they can also be transmitted from the Arctic to elsewhere in the world.

“The point is no one is really joining up the dots between climate change and the spread of disease. There’s a whole new disease transmission cycle appearing in the Arctic which we just don’t understand.”

Impact on humans

Human disease levels in the Arctic are a continuing concern says Heffernan. Rates of TB among the Inuit of northern Canada are far higher than in the general population.

Major economic change and development now taking place in the Arctic means previously nomadic people are moving to towns in search jobs. Ice melt is also forcing more into settlements. With people living in close proximity to each other, disease tends to spread faster. Infant mortality in the Arctic, much of it due to diseases curable elsewhere in the world, is considerably higher than elsewhere.

“In 1930s there was a temperature spike in the Arctic which led to an outbreak of malaria” says Heffernan. “In subsequent years chloroquine was used to combat it. But what happens now, with temperatures rising and the prevalence of chloroquine resistant malaria?”

Anthrax alert

Early in the last century there were periodic outbreaks of anthrax in the Russian Arctic, resulting in the deaths of thousands of deer and cattle. Some Russian scientists and officials have warned that burial sites of those anthrax infected animals are now being exposed.

“As the Arctic melts, ancient pathogens can suddenly escape” says Heffernan. “No one knows for certain how many livestock burial sites there are in the Russian Arctic – I’ve seen estimates ranging from 400 to 13,000.”

In recent years there have been several anthrax outbreaks affecting both cattle and people reported in the region, particularly among communities of the indigenous Yakut, who often live near to such burial sites.

With Arctic temperatures rising at more than twice the rate of the rest of the world, Heffernan says there’s an urgent need to link disease and climate change and tackle health issues.

But there are a number of problems preventing concerted action: the Arctic is governed by different states with different laws. There’s not even a common agreement among Arctic nation states on the region’s boundaries. There’s a dearth of trained medical staff and research across the region. When it comes to statistics, the Arctic is something of a black hole with health data subsumed into more general country wide statistics.

“There’s very little biosecurity work going on in the Arctic” says Heffernan. “Yet we have the means to control so many of these diseases. There must be urgent, concerted, joined up action.”

Gray Wolves Would Be Removed From Endangered Species List Under New Plan

Indian Country Today Media Network

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has proposed taking the gray wolf off the federal Endangered Species List, saying it is no longer in danger of extinction, and replacing it with the Mexican wolf, a species under siege.

The move, said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Director Dan Ashe in a teleconference with reporters, allows the agency to focus on the much more endangered Mexican wolf. (Related: Shooting of Mexican Gray Wolf Being Investigated by Federal Government)

Gray wolves in the northern Rocky Mountains and the western Great Lakes are already out from under federal protection. Today’s announcement lifts the federal restrictions from all lower 48 states. The wolves will still be managed, Ashe said, but the states will do it. Tribes are also important in these efforts, he said. (Related: Proposed Settlement Would De-List Idaho, Montana Gray Wolves)

Working with state partners in Arizona and New Mexico, “our goal is to reinvigorate our Mexican wolf recovery program,” Ashe said. “No one is suggesting” that gray wolves require less protection, but the question is whether they still require federal protection, he added.

Tribal input will be key during both the gray wolf’s transition away from federal management and the Mexican wolf’s continued regeneration, Ashe said.

“We have worked historically through the reintroduction and recovery effort with tribes, and our principal partner is the Nez Perce Tribe in Idaho,” he said. “In fact, during key juncture in the recovery effort, when the State of Idaho was not participating—government and political leaders had prohibited the state fish and game agency from participating—the Nez Perce Tribe played a critical role with us and was really a vital partner in the early stages.”

“Regarding the Mexican Wolf, the White Mountain Apache have been a key partner so far to recover the Mexican Wolf,” he said, “and tribal partners will be increasingly important in the Southwest as we reinvigorate our efforts to recover the Mexican wolf.”

The dual move reflects the fact that the federal government has fulfilled its responsibility under the Endangered Species Act, which turns 40 this year, to ensure that “the gray wolf is going to remain a part of the landscape of our nation and for future generations of Americans,” Ashe said. The gray wolf population has grown from a few hundred in the early 2000s to :at least 6,100 gray wolves in the contiguous United States, with a current estimate of 1,674 in the Northern Rocky Mountains and 4,432 in the Western Great Lakes,” according to the Fish and Wildlife Service on its website.

“About this time next year we should be talking about a final proposal,” he said. The clock on a 90-day public comment period begins on June 7, after which the Fish and Wildlife Service will evaluate the results and come up with a determination and a plan.

The wolves have been considered endangered for the entire tenure of the protection law. Ashe admitted the government had “persecuted” the animals before they were listed for protection—hunting them from the air, gassing them in their dens and poisoning them in the wild. But in 1995, wildlife officials had released a few dozen wolves into Yellowstone National Park and in Idaho, and today there are more than 1,700 in that region alone, he said.

 

Read more at https://indiancountrytodaymedianetwork.com/2013/06/07/gray-wolves-would-be-removed-endangered-species-list-under-new-plan-149773

Seeking Cooks and Cook Helpers for Salmon Ceremony Event

The Tulalip Tribes Salmon Ceremony Event

June 15, 2013

Job Title(s):  Cooks and Cook Helpers

Note:  The Tulalip Tribes publicly announces that Indian Preference to hiring shall apply to the Tulalip Tribal job opportunities.

Requirements:

  • Have a valid state driver’s license, reliable vehicle and auto insurance. (PREFERRED)
  • Food Handlers Permit. (PREFERRED)
  • Must pass initial criminal history background check.
  • Dependable and willing to work.
  • Must be able to work non-traditional hours which may vary due to participation.
  • Able to work independently, follow direction and work well with others.
  • Must be at least 16 years of age.

Physical Characteristics and/or Prerequisites:

  • Stamina to sit, stand and/or walk for prolonged periods of time.
  • Mobility to bend, stoop, and/ or climb stairs.
  • Ability to lift/push/pull heavy objects.

Tribal Department:  Community Services

Job Summary:         To prepare and help serve food for the traditional dinner provided to The Tulalip Tribes Community and Public. Provide support to The Tulalip Tribes annual Salmon Ceremony which offers Tulalip Tribal Members with a forum to participate in their origins, beliefs, values and lifeways. Provide support to the traditional ceremony and dinner held to honor the first salmon caught of the season.

Employee Reports To:  Head Cook

Responsibilities:

  • Assist cook in preparing and serving meals for up to 200 guests.
  • Ensure safe and sanitary conditions at the site.
  • Clean up after meals and as assigned.
  • Wash and sanitize dishes, equipment and all surfaces regularly.
  • Assist with food orders and shopping if needed.
  • Assist with putting away delivered food and items as needed.

Disclaimer:  The information provided in this description has been designed to indicate the general nature and level of work performed by incumbents within this job. It is not designed to be interpreted as a comprehensive inventory of all duties, responsibilities, qualifications and working conditions required of employees assigned to this job. Management has sole discretion to add or modify duties of the job and to designate other functions as essential at any time. This job description is not an employment agreement or contract

Terms of Employment: This is a stipend position that can be up to but no longer than two days (48 hours) of services rendered
Pay Rate:    STIPEND

Opening Date:        June 7, 2013

Closing Date:          June 12, 2013 at 4:00 pm

For more information or questions; please call Sasha Smith at Central Employment # 360-716-4284

Larsen Leads Bipartisan Legislation to Help Students in Schools Serving Military Bases and Indian Tribes

larsen.house.gov
WASHINGTON—Rep. Rick Larsen, WA-02, is the lead cosponsor of a bipartisan bill introduced today that will provide critical funding to schools that serve military families and Indian tribes. The Local Taxpayer Relief Act of 2013, which Larsen cosponsored with Rep. Kristi Noem, a Republican from South Dakota, continues funding for Impact Aid, which provides payments to school districts that serve large numbers of military families and Indian tribes.
 
“Without Impact Aid, schools in Oak Harbor, Marysville and La Conner would not be able to keep teachers and textbooks in classrooms,” Larsen said. “This bipartisan bill will provide permanent reliable funding to our schools, allowing them to provide the best opportunities to our students today and well into the future.”
 
The majority of public school funding comes from local property taxes. Families on military bases and on Indian lands do not pay local property taxes, denying local schools their traditional funding source. Impact Aid makes up the difference, providing direct payments to school districts that serve large numbers of federally-connected students.
 
“It’s important that we level the playing field for these districts who experience a lower local property tax base due to this federal land or educate federally connected students,” Noem said. “I was proud to work with Rep. Larsen in crafting this common-sense, bipartisan bill to make sure we are supporting our schools and students.”
 
·        Make the Impact Aid program permanent;
·        Require the Department of Education to make Impact Aid payments to school districts within three years;
·        Make school districts whose student bodies consist at least 45 percent federally-connected students eligible for Impact Aid;
·        Make it easier for school districts to receive the grant funding they need to make major school repairs.
 
Larsen successfully included his Impact Aid Timely Repayment Act in last year’s National Defense Authorization Act. But that provision is due to expire. The Local Taxpayer Relief Act of 2013 will make that provision permanent.
 
The Oak Harbor School District receives more than 10 percent of its funds from Impact Aid. Superintendent Rick Schulte endorsed the legislation and thanked Larsen for his leadership on the bill.
 
“Congressman Larsen has been a leader on Impact Aid since the day he was elected and has been extremely helpful to Oak Harbor schools,” Schulte said.
 
The National Association of Federally Impacted Schools (NAFIS) also endorsed the bill.
 
“We thank the sponsors of this bill and urge members of Congress to consider cosponsoring this important piece of legislation that is a critical lifeline for federally impacted schools,” said NAFIS Executive Director John Forkenbrock.
 
The text of the bill is available here. Sens. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and John Thune, R-S.D., introduced companion legislation in the Senate today.
 
Learn more about the Impact Aid program here.

Lummi Food Sovereignty gets a big boost

The Northwest Indian College project was awarded a $65,000 grant by The ConAgra Foods Foundation

– Northwest Indian College

Food sovereignty is a topic that is discussed more and more in Indian Country these days. Tribal leaders and members are realizing that they can’t be completely sovereign if they rely on outside sources for their food. That idea has prompted Northwest Indian College’s (NWIC) Cooperative Extension Department to implement food sovereignty programs at two of its reservation sites: Muckleshoot and Lummi.

The Muckleshoot project was the first of the two to launch about four years ago. From the get go, the program was popular in the Muckleshoot community and received national attention from other tribes, donor organizations and the media.

Last year, motivated by the success of the Muckleshoot project and requests from the Lummi community, NWIC launched the Lummi Food Sovereignty Project. Now this younger project is beginning to see its share of support.

Most recently, that support came in the form of a generous $65,000 grant from The ConAgra Foods Foundation.

NWIC is one of 12 nonprofit organizations in eight states across the nation selected to receive a 2013 Community Impact Grant from The ConAgra Foods Foundation. Grantees are selected from areas with the greatest number of children at risk of experiencing hunger as determined by Feeding America’s study “Map the Meal Gap: Child Food Insecurity Estimates,” and/or where 100 or more ConAgra Foods employees reside.

 

“A grant of this size allows us to move forward with this project,” said Susan Given-Seymour, director of NWIC’s Cooperative Extension Department. “With The ConAgra Foods Foundation’s support, we will expand the project to meet the Lummi community demand for a project that serves the entire community, including youth, elders, schools, healthcare programs, and more.”

The ConAgra Foods Foundation funds allow NWIC to pool resources of people, facilities, and curricula with the resources of the Lummi Commodity Foods Program and the Lummi Nation Service Organization to form a Lummi Food Sovereignty working team.

“We can use all of these resources to support the desire of the Lummi people to get back the health and healthy lifestyle they enjoyed before European contact,” Given-Seymour said.

The Lummi Food Sovereignty Project evolved out of a four-year research project, the Lummi Traditional Food Project, which tested a culturally-based approach to wellness that emphasized lifestyle changes based on increased consumption of traditional and healthy foods and related educational programming. Vanessa Cooper, Traditional Plants program coordinator at NWIC, has headed the project since it kicked off. She said the program’s success, just like its roots, is community driven.

“I love to watch the ripple effect of the work that we do,” Cooper said. “When one person is impacted, they tell others, their friends and family members. Word of mouth is powerful and our program has grown based on the experiences that families are sharing with others. It paints a very clear picture of the need for this kind of programming and the hunger that people have for it.”

The ConAgra Foods Foundation grant will support activities that promote healthy, traditionally-based food behaviors that produce the following outcomes and activities:

  • Teaching and supporting cooks in commercial kitchens (schools, elder centers, etc.) to prepare healthier meals
  • More community educators will work in a variety of venues
  • Giving the entire community increased information about the availability and use of traditional foods in healthy meal preparation
  • Commercial kitchens will implement policies promoting healthier foods
  • The community will ultimately experience improved health and wellness

“We are very grateful to The ConAgra Foods Foundation for giving us this support and we look forward to getting to know some of the ConAgra Foods employees through their on-site volunteerism,” Given-Seymour said.

Now in its fourth year, The ConAgra Foods Foundation has invested more than $2 million in Community Impact Grants programming – including enrollment in government-assistance programs, nutrition education, advocacy and direct access to food. The program aims to provide more than seven million meals to children across the country.

“Without access to healthy food – even temporarily – children can face life-long wellness consequences,” said Kori Reed, vice president, ConAgra Foods Foundation and Cause. “That’s why programs like Northwest Indian College’s are so important. Being on the frontlines every day, Northwest Indian College is nourishing these children so they can unlock their highest potential, and we want to empower that success.”

 

Northwest Indian College is an accredited, tribally chartered institution headquartered on the Lummi Reservation at 2522 Kwina Road in Bellingham Wash., 98226, and can be reached by phone at (866) 676-2772 or by email at info@nwic.edu.