In the above images you can see the current site layout of Tea Creek, the planned structures and features, as well as zones and areas of focus for future development.
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Our concept for 2023 is for different organizations to sponsor a field block at Tea Creek.
The cost will be $15,000 - $25,000 per field block. The blocks will be different sizes - larger 1/4 acre tractor fields, or smaller, more dense hand-farmed field blocks.
The organization that sponsors will have right-of-first-refusal on the harvest from the block, and an opportunity to shape the plant-in, and to participate as much or as little as they want in the field over the year. Please note that ALL fields are subject to use all year from school and community groups.
The proceeds will go towards paying dedicated farmers for the season, and will cover input costs such as fuel, seeds, water, compost, and tools.
Please let us know if you would like to fund-a-field in 2023! We need to have all field blocks committed by end of January, 2023! Plant-in will range from March - May!
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Did you know that we hosted over 1,000 additional on-site Indigenous guests in 2022? Many are kids, youth, and elders. Examples include:
Each visitor is offered a warm meal, a chance to participate and learn from our land-based programming, and an opportunity to bring fresh healthy food home.
These visits are currently not funded or supported. We have multiple opportunities for improvement including:
Currently the lack of cold storage is a serious bottleneck at Tea Creek. The amount of food we can grow, or accept, or prepare is very limited by our current small cold storage and lack of any root cellars. Our current cold storage is a renovated, very small chicken coop!
With root cellars - we are hoping for at least 3 - we could plant more crops, harvest more, and distribute more food to the community.
The cost for a new root cellar ranges greatly based on size and construction type.
We envision large root cellars that we could put 'lifts' of veggies and food into with pallet forks. As an example, our potato storage is currently a maximum of 4,000lb total, a volume that was gifted into the community in only 1 day in 2022! We can grow over 40,000lb in our current fields, but with storage so limited, we limit our growing as well. Currently we store 4,000lb, grow 10-15,000lb, and donate the balance immediately without storing it.
With cold storage we could:
The addition of a Bridging to Employment coordinator would go a long way to help trainees and apprentices transition to employment and self-employment. There are currently a lot of work opportunities in the region, and generally a shortage of workers. The jump from training to regular employment is jarring for most trainees.
Additionally, it is important to advocate and support trainees to get into fair jobs for their training level. Consider that according to ITA BC, roughly half of Indigenous apprentices do not get hours recognized in their trade. Also consider that Indigneous people face systemic racism and discrimination in workplaces, sometimes resulting in being given jobs and tasks below their skill and training level.
The following would help improve employment outcomes:
The Industry Training Authority (ITA BC) is the organization that issues trades tickets and Red Seals. We currently have a MOU with ITA, and would like to take the next step and be a designated training provider. ITA Designation may open doors to multi-year budgets and more steady funding. Funding challenges are our biggest challenges, so this could be key to future success and stability.
To be designated, we will need to develop curriculum at least in Horticulture, and we need to meet standards for our site. The good news is that we already teach basic horticulture, and we nearly meet the requirements. The bulk of work would be curriculum development.
We already have experienced instructors and active trades training programs on site.
Please contact us if you can help with funding or in-kind support!
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Support our land-based, Indigenous-led, culturally-safe programming with the creation of Indigenous-led curriculum and learning content. Examples of what is needed include:
The ways this can be supported include:
Examples of learning videos include:
Priorities for curriculum development are for our most requested training and programs:
To accelerate toward food security and sovereignty, we need to use tractors to scale up production and keep food affordable. One of the least expensive sources of calories are potatoes, which are easily grown on a larger scale with machinery. In 2021 we grew 10,000lb of potatoes on 3/4 of an acre with trainees and tractor farming. 100% of all food grown at Tea Creek is gifted back into our communities.
Currently, all Tea Creek vehicles and machinery are fossil-fuel driven. We would love to add electric and hybrid equipment and vehicles to our fleet. Electric in particular increases sovereignty by reducing reliance on fossil fuels. Fuel availability and prices have been greatly disrupted. We would like to demonstrate electric and alternative options.
Opportunities for Electric:
Images for inspiration only
Tea Creek already has over 1,200 Indigenous guests per year, hosts community visits weekly in the busy season, and distributes tonnes of food per year into Indigenous families and communities. We are lacking facilities for our food hub. The Hereditary Chief of the territory we live on requested that we build a longhouse at Tea Creek. Since then we've been presenting the concept of a central Longhouse Food Hub at Tea Creek.
Provisionally, the Longhouse Food Hub would feature:
The cost to create the Longhouse Food Hub centre would cost $1,500,00 - $2,500,000 depending on scope and scale.
]]>Tea Creek currently lacks a functioning agricultural Barn, as well as shelters for trainees. In general, Tea Creek lacks roof space. Adding roof space around the training farm will enable:
The cost for barn-building tends to be $30-$100/ sq ft, depending on the scope of the building or shelter.
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Lack of affordable, reliable childcare is a large barrier for trainees at Tea Creek. Our site also offers a fantastic environment for children, if they have competent caregivers to keep them safe. Ideally, we would have a complimentary childcare service located on-site for participants who are unable to secure childcare at home. At a minimum on-site we would need a play area including a weather shelter (such as a gazebo).
Children on site would benefit from our land-based, culturally-safe education. They'd also have access to healthy, local food daily.
In land clearing, trees and brush are usually put into slash piles and burned, releasing carbon into the atmosphere. Instead, we chip as much as possible and use the chips as weed-suppressing mulch, and also as important soil and compost builders. Our wood chipper runs for much of the growing season, and trainees learn how to safely operate the chipper and use the chips for soil building and different food production such as bedding. We also process trees by hand for heating fuel, as most of our structures in the north are wood heated in the winter and shoulder seasons - and we can go through a lot of fuel heating structures during training.
Indigenous communities in our region have very limited capacity to re-develop farm and food-producing lands (including food forests, etc). Currently, we have 1 "car hauler" trailer but need larger trailers and diesel towing trucks to effectively move machinery around community to community with the required attachments. Last year we used our own trainees, and deployed them to one community to rototill farm and garden spaces. We currently have four communities signed up who need equipment provided to get going.
Most participants don't have driver's licenses when they first join our programs. Of those with licences, fewer have access to reliable transportation such as an insured running vehicle and fuel in the tank. Lack of transportation is a major barrier and challenge in rural Indigenous Canada.
Since we started our programming, we've offered participants rides within our region - sometimes paying community members to give rides, other times picking people up in our personal vehicles. We currently have a very small fleet of used mini-vans that we use to pick up participants.
The high-intensity organic hand-farming methods we teach enable people to grow between 7,000 and 14,000lb of food per year in an area the size of an average front or back yard on reserve. What is missing for people is access to affordable supplies and tools. We'd like to equip our trainees and communities with the supplies and tools they need to produce an abundance of healthy, local food.
Tea Creek provides a perfect environment for trainees to learn new storytelling skills and put them into practice. Last year we ran two pilot projects using Indigenous instructors and mentors and it went very well. In the future, we'd like storytelling training and work to be built into all our activities - part of the vision is to have Indigenous-led, Indigenous-created videos to help other nations learn from our work.
In our valley, over 600 acres were once in active food production, and all of it has become overgrown.
The most efficient way to reclaim foodland is through forestry mulching. The mulcher, if large enough, and chip entire trees and mix the chip into the soil up to 2". When left to rest, the mulched brush and trees compost and we can then start re-establishing food production on this land.
Other crucial tools include brush mowers, plows, roto-tillers, and rock-pickers to prepare fields
Funding for youth can be challenging for us to access. Youth respond very well to our land-based, culturally-safe training and many find careers and passions along with higher self-esteem and mental health after attending Tea Creek.
Ideally in the future we'd have full time youth programming through the year.