Network Co-Coordinator Update: Winter Solstice 2019
“In this season on this day at this hour we remember. Our minds come together. The soul’s rest is replaced with grace. A mighty light returns again for the people.” -Janet Marie Rogers
Solstice Greetings Dear Farmily near and far,
It is our privilege and honor to send one final update for 2019. We have come full circle through the rhythms of the land and stars, one whole year of learning, building, growing, pivoting, healing, and connecting. We’ve expanded our network; developed strategies for land access that reflect our resistance, resilience, and liberation; casting our message far and wide like a net of light throughout these unceded territories, illuminating truth and catalyzing action. We planted seeds, tended them, watched some germinate, some not, and learned lessons that only listening to the land, and the people who steward the land could teach us.
On this winter solstice, we hold the growing light together in our homes, our hearts, and our hearthfires. We pour libations, offer tobacco to the fire, tell stories, and nestle inwards to the places of dreaming, taking stillness and rest to make space for transformations and evolutions requiring deep compassion and strength.
We’re birthing a land trust together, folks. But we’re birthing so much more. I’m excited to share with you this last update before the end of another DECADE, and excited to share a deeper dive into our year next month after all the numbers, metrics, lessons, and reflections have been tallied.
Progress
We started 2019 with a seed of an idea, a list of go-to folks who support the work, and the gentle guidance and deep dedication of our fiscal sponsor, Soul Fire Farm Institute, Inc.
In one year we traveled the equivalent of 6 times around the globe (or so says Google maps!) casting our message far and wide, meeting supporters, network farmers, land stewards, and allies.
We offered workshops, gave keynotes, had hundreds of one-on-one and group conversations, and chipped away at the form of this goal of land and food sovereignty. We began this work in earnest, taking the idea and over a year, forming it into one that we can clearly see and articulate.
We learned about the legal mechanisms that make a land trust function, and built legal tools like ground lease agreements, cultural respect easements, and learned about farm standards, forest standards, ecological stewardship standards and agreements through our work with the Agrarian Commons Creation Committee (part of Agrarian Trust.)
We built relationships within our exponentially growing NEFOC Network- which grew from 150 members to over 300!; with Indigenous communities throughout the Northeast on the land; and with Allied and Sibling organizations who are standing at the ready to support with Technical Assistance.
We established an order within which the “dominoes” need to fall for this land trust; to not replicate colonial harm through the foundation of our Indigenous Consultation Protocol; to become fiscally independent within the next 6-8m months as we finalize our 501c3 application; and through the development of an annual fundraising plan, communications strategy, and internal technical manuals that will serve as the driver’s manual for the land trust’s operation.
We learned lessons that taxed our energy and spirit, and pivoted to develop tools that will not only serve the organization, but the real people behind the work every day.
Gratitude
We are grateful for the unwavering support of our fiscal sponsor and family at Soul Fire Farm Institute, Inc., including Leah Penniman for the biweekly check-ins full of loving support, guidance, and education; Jonah Vitale-Wolff for bookeeping, financial support, and patience (and reading list!), Larisa Jacobson for being a bridge between our organizations as a Board member and for always showing up with great care and heart; and all of Soul Fire’s staff for the support at the network gathering and virtually- including Damaris Miller, Lytisha Wyatt, Neshima (for our beautiful logo) and Emet Vitale-Penniman, Cheryl Whilby, Naima Penniman (for words that spark our souls!), Amani Olugbala, Gabriela Álvarez, Ria Ibrahim Taylor, and Brooke Bridges- this connection and support has nurtured this collective dream into being!!!
We are grateful for our Interim Council members, Ulum Pixan, Elizabeth O’Gilvie, Diana Warwin, Neftali Duran, Christine Hutchinson, Carmen Mouzon, Keely Campbell, Nia Holley, and Larisa Jacobson for supporting us through the tender, formative beginning months of this work as we gained foothold together, helping shape our governance structure.
We are grateful to our Board of Directors, Christine Hutchinson, Carmen Mouzon, Keely Campbell, Nia Holley, Larisa Jacobson, Rafael Aponte, and John (JD) DeLoatch for showing up with an open heart, critical mind turned toward the revolution that will collectively benefit our communities, and willingness to get dirt under your nails.
Many thanks to Baba Clark Arrington and Julian Hill, both who helped navigate us on this journey within the legal framework.
We are grateful to each one of you for joining us, connecting with us, sharing your gifts, skills, dreams, and visions for the sovereign future we’re building together on this journey.
And finally, we’re grateful to our funders, the NoVo Foundation and Cooperative Development Institute, for providing the financial soil within which to incubate this essential land trust; the Jesse Smith Noyes Foundation for supporting the development of our Indigenous Consultation Protocol in New York State; American Farmland Trust for providing financial support to assist us with the development of a Land Stewardship Strategy and Guidelines as well as the development of a framework with which we can assist our New York state farmers in accessing farmland as Regional Navigators. We hold gratitude for the continued efforts of the Cooperative Development Institute to support Farmers of Color through our collaboration to develop skillshare gathering for Refugee and Migrant farmers in Maine, and for the continued technical assistance as we develop farming cooperative guidelines. We are well-loved and are still tallying the personal donations from private donors, many of whom have pledged multi-year commitments that will fund the purchase and maintenance of lands to steward as the trust solidifies.
Ultimately, we are grateful for our Creator and all of Creation, including the land we strive to access, and the lessons they provide. Without the Land, we would not be. Without the Land, there is no Creation.
As it says in the Ohen:ton Karihwatehkwen, the Haudenosaunee Thanksgiving Address, “Now, then, that is how far we have gone with our words. If there is anything that we have forgotten to mention, now, then, you could fix it or add to it. Therefore, let our minds be that way (appreciative). “ If we have forgotten anyone in our words of gratitude, it is not intentional. We will offer greater reflections of gratitude in our annual report.
Plan for 2020
Land Trust Solidification:
We are well on our way to filing our IRS and corporate paperwork with the assistance attorneys Carlos Teuscher and Anna Carlsson at the Harvard Transactional Law Clinic. Our Board is working through the last of the By-laws with a careful, discerning, and essentially critical eye to build a functional governance structure that will keep the land and our BIPOC communities at the center of this work with as decolonial an eye as can be cast in these colonial waters. With any hope, we will be a fully functioning land trust ready to begin the next phase of land access work between June and August, 2020!
Indigenous Consultation:
Our consultation protocol is in draft mode and we are working with Indigenous community leaders, liaisons, and culturally respectful consultants to navigate the essential steps to build relationships with the First Nations, Original Peoples, and peoples Indigenous to the unceded territory we all occupy here in the Northeast. We begin 2020 with a deep dive into this outreach and are planning on the land and kitchen table conversations this spring, and ceremony and listening journeys into the summer and fall. Our goal is to center the voices of Indigenous peoples so that this land trust doesn’t replicate the same colonial harm that perpetuates the transactional and extractive nature of settler colonialism.
Service Design:
We’re developing a service design plan that will further build the infrastructure for the NEFOCLT member & community crisis support; protocols for member invited farm visits NEFOC members; alternative and sustainable models for member convenings; and interaction points for different stakeholders; protocols and services for reparations map project and a reparations pipeline and protocol with allied organisations; as well as tools for land acquisition least two properties by 2021.
Membership Development:
We are implementing a new position for a Network Coordinator to continue building the NEFOC Network through the development of regional hubs. We hope this will encourage increased participation of NEFOC Network members by bringing the Network to you, instead of you to the Network. We aim to nurture the development of regional skill shares, networking, and advancement of regional policy by increasing access to each other and lessening the challenges and barriers of distance in the northeastern region.
Refugee & Migrant Networks:
In collaboration with allied and sibling organizations, we’re planning two networking and skillshare events specifically for newcomer farmers, to be held in Maine this year.
Self Care, Sustainability, and Regenerative Leadership:
Our leadership style is evolving, becoming more sustainable, regenerative, and decentralized. As we dive deep this year to develop the tools, strategies, policies, and relationships that will spark life into the trust, we will be reaching out to you, our community of land lovers, farmers, renegade stewards, and excellence, to add your voice to the work through our development of a Speakers Collective. Our goal is to celebrate your regional leadership and amplify your voices in collectively lifting this project off the ground! If you’re an adept public speaker, are passionate about this work, and are interested in offering support, please be in touch! We are also centering the voices of those who have paved the way and inspired the strategies that we are picking up, all while keeping our carbon footprint low and our energy conserved for the deep dive we’re taking this year through the delivery of a 6-session, recorded webinar series starting in March 2020! Stay tuned!
Farmily, there’s so much more to share, but we will leave you on this darkest night with this update as our offering to you, and the land- a very real manifestation of a year’s worth of work that we hope sparks a light in your hearts. We look forward to sharing our annual report at the end of January/beginning of February after we’ve had time to rest, reflect, and digest the immensity of what we have collectively grown.
May the growing light bless you and your families, communities, and lands,
Your humble Co-Coordinators,
Stephanie Morningstar & Çaca Yvaire
