This update comes from the World Hunger Ecumenical Arizona Task-Force (WHEAT), a Presbyterian Hunger Program grant partner.
WHEAT joined with the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community (SRPMIC) to help begin personal gardens for senior adults. The Community had long had a garden, but few planted or harvested on it and the seeds distributed didn’t seem to be growing on anyone’s property. WHEAT has had much success with its School Garden to Home program with young students, and thought to employ these same principles.
Through the process, the Garden Tech for the community, taught WHEAT and our team so much more. While we shared our outreach, he shared his deep knowledge of the O’odham way of life through storytelling, nature and growing seeds. He taught us the important role that seeds and plants play in not only healing, but in our survival as a people, having a genuine, conscious reconnection to nature helps grow a better understanding of the world around us.
“Anybody can go to the store and buy organic vegetables and save the seeds, and there is nothing wrong with that. But the major benefit and difference in connecting to your Community’s seeds, are all the teachings you will receive from those cultivated plants. The plants you harvest from the desert, the wild ones, working with those plants and getting out in the heat, doing labor as you’re quietly picking, you will hear birds, the wind, and it’s all healing and medicine,” the Garden Tech told us. Lessons learned!
The work of the Presbyterian Hunger Program is possible thanks to your gifts to