Race is the most significant predictor of a person living near contaminated air, water, or soil in the United States. Seattle’s Environmental Justice (EJ) Fund was created in 2017 to support projects that advance climate justice and respond to climate change, led by and in service to communities most affected by environmental inequities: Black, Indigenous, People of Color, immigrants, refugees, people with low incomes, youth, and elders. This story is part of a series highlighting the incredible work of community organizations supported by the EJ Fund.
Everyone needs food to survive, but the importance of food doesn’t just come from its role in sustaining life. We develop connections to and over food that are personal, cultural, and environmental through how it’s grown, harvested, prepared, and consumed.
FEED Seven Generations (FEED) is a Seattle nonprofit guided by the vision of strengthening a Native American centered sustainable food system rooted in traditional ecological knowledge.
FEED — Fostering, Educating, Empowering, and Developing — created a school program for Indigenous youth to cultivate connections with food, culture, and nature within themselves and their communities. The curriculum aims to increase knowledge of and access to traditional native foods. The City of Seattle’s EJ Fund awarded FEED a grant in 2022 to help bring this educational program to life.
Held at the Muckleshoot Tribal School (K-12), lessons focus on sustaining a healthy community and environment through the intersections between cultural foods, environmental stewardship, and personal enrichment. FEED works with teachers to bring kids foraging excursions, Indigenous plants crafts, and family nights with foods and beverages made from foraged plants.
“Plant identification and harvesting ethics are at the root of this curriculum,” said RomaJean Thomas, FEED’s program director. “We want to teach the students how to use the medicinal aspects of Indigenous plants, as well as how, when, and where to find them.”
Thomas believes that with this kind of education, students are learning to become confident environmental leaders.
“A health indicator of our community is the health of our environment and underlying all the work we do is community health practices,” Thomas said. “Without a healthy environment, healthy resources, and a healthy food system, we can’t have health as a people.”
Working as advocates for food sovereignty and environmental policy for the last decade, FEED envisions a world where all Native Americans have access to a nutritious and culturally significant diet through a local and sustainable food system.
Outside of classrooms, the organization has developed and facilitated community education programs aimed at strengthening the health of Indigenous communities and the lands around the Salish Sea. The programs support Indigenous communities in incorporating native and cultural foods like nettles, evergreen tree tips, huckleberries, into daily meals.
FEED’s goal is not only to guide the next generation of Indigenous environmental stewards, but craft a curriculum model that can be replicated in other tribal communities and schools.
“Seeing these kids out there advocating for environmental stewardship, their food system, and wanting to be healthy gives me hope,” Thomas said. “I know that we’re in good hands.”
The portion of this project financially supported by the EJ Fund wrapped when the last school year ended, but FEED has continued the curriculum into the current school year.
“This is the year it feels like it’s replicable,” Thomas remarked. “We’ve created the path, we can continue on it, and now we can share that out with other schools.”
Jazzmin (she/her) is a Climate and Environmental Justice Intern at OSE. She is leading the Environmental Justice Fund Storytelling Series and is working to bring greater awareness to the critical environmental justice work happening in Seattle. Jazzmin is a recent graduate from the School of Marine and Environmental Affairs at the University of Washington where her graduate research focused on community engagement, marine renewable energy, and environmental justice.