PATHKEEPERS for
INDIGENOUS KNOWLEDGE
One School, One Garden:
Planting Health, Culture, and Sovereignty in
American Indian Schools
Pathkeepers is excited to announce our newest campaign – One School, One Garden: Planting Health, Culture, and Sovereignty in American Indian Schools –
in support of traditional knowledge and encouraging our youth to maintain connections with the natural world and Mother Earth as Indigenous Peoples.
The One School, One Garden Campaign:
Pathkeepers’ One School, One Garden Campaign aims to place a garden in every school across Indian Country! Through these school gardens, Pathkeepers will provide opportunities for American Indian youth to learn and experience the gifts Mother Earth has given us in plants, our responsibility to care for them, and the health and wellness benefits they return to us. Gardens also help Indian youth build skills they will need for a healthy, fulfilled life, including: independence, responsibility, creativity, self-esteem, and sensitivity and connection to all other beings.
Pathkeepers will work with local communities to encourage the use of local and Indigenous seeds and the use of traditional, sustainable techniques in building the garden. Traditional sustainable gardening also reduces energy and resource use, supports local production of food, and recycles nutrients in the soil. Students, teachers, and volunteers will be charged with planting the garden, tending and harvest. All foods harvested will be divided among students, teachers, staff and the local Native community. Garden produce can be sold at a Farmer’s Market, or shared/sold in any other way the community would like. Funding from Garden sales can be used to support other community programs. These gardens have life-changing benefits for our young people’s health, culture and emotional and physical fitness, and we are excited to offer this new program.