This blog post is a contribution from Mary Modeste, a participant of Tea Creek’s farming program.
“My name us Mary Modeste. I had the opportunity to go up to Kitwanga, BC to experience and learn new tools at Tea Creek. As part of the program this summer, we travelled for a few days to visit several new Indigenous-led farms across the province and learn how they run.
In the clip below, Dixon Terbasket of Ntamtqen Community Garden & Food Hub was showing us his gardens and explaining to us that he was in the process of building a food hub and root cellar. The garden uses a similar model to Tea Creek. His plan is to have that food hub readily available for his community to use for processing food. Upstairs would be a living space for farm workers.
Nikki was another wonderful person we met on the tour. As soon as we got to Sun Valley Ranch, a project of the Okanagan Indian Band, we were out straight to work on vegetables. As we worked, Nikki told us of how they bring in foster kids to teach them food sovereignty and gain work experience, giving them confidence and a sense of belonging and meaning. I loved that.
“This trip has given me hope. I hope that one day I can run my own farm and help out the community and elders, just like many of these beautiful farms we went to.”
Learn more about Tea Creek here.