Support our primary food production

• We grow over 20,000lb of vegetables each year at Tea Creek and donate the production into our Indigenous communities in our region.
• We had over 5,500 indigenous site visits in 2022 - a 350% increase over 2021. Most of those visitors benefitted from Tea Creek vegetables through meals and free veggie giveaways and distributions. 

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!

Support Indigenous Community Land-Based Education and Access

Did you know that we hosted over 1,000 additional on-site Indigenous guests in 2022? Many are kids, youth, and elders. Examples include:

• Elementary and High School class visits from Indigneous schools and classes
• Elders groups from multiple communities
• Community days where any Indigenous family can drop in

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:

• Support for supplies and materials to provide tours, meals, and food to take-home
• Funds to hire additional hosting staff, so we can host more guests, and add more community days, workshops, and special visits
• A welcome structure such as a gazebo where we can sign visitors in and out, and conduct orientations
• A "hay wagon", mutli-seat side-by-side vehicles or golf carts to provide on-site transportation options for the young, old, and physically disabled. We'd love to stop using our regular farm trailers, which are not well suited for people transport!

Support More Cold Storage for Crops and Food

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:

• Grow and store more potatoes, keeping them for up to a full year, and distributing them as needed
• Grow and store far more veggies such as carrots, cabbage, turnips, beets, beans, corn, and more
• Grow more greens such as lettuce, which with proper storage can keep up to two months before being distributed! This means we could grow outdoors up to end of October, and store fresh lettuce until end of January!

Support Meals and Nutrition

Some Ideas:

• Fund the purchase of groceries and supplies needed to provide meals, any amount is appreciated.
• Support the wages of our Indigenous professional cooks.
• Support the training cost for dedicated Indigenous Professional Cook trainees.
• Fund an Indigenous Entrepreneur to start a home-based food production business, we will hire them for catering work over the training season.

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:

• Program outlines that include Indigenous content
• Culturally-safe outlines and learning content
• Teaching/ instructional videos created with Indigenous people leading and learning 

The ways this can be supported include:

• Hiring an Indigenous curriculum writer
• Training and hiring an Indigenous media crew to record and edit lessons
• Working with an Indigenous online curator to create and maintain online learning assets

Examples of learning videos include:

• https://www.facebook.com/jwbeaton/videos/10158463451276043/ 
• https://www.facebook.com/teacreekfarm/videos/1096367664254978/
  
• https://www.facebook.com/jwbeaton/videos/606711147777959/ 
  
• https://www.facebook.com/jwbeaton/videos/10159100904831043/ 
  

Priorities for curriculum development are for our most requested training and programs:

• Indigenous Ag/ Horticulture 
• H.E.O
• Carpentry 
• Cannabis
• Indigenous Pro Cook
• Implementation of the Tea Creek Model in communities/ Nations

Help us build our Longhouse Food Hub!

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:

• Commercial Kitchen(s)
• Food processing facilities
• Cold storage, root cellar, and freezer
• Multi-purpose space for food distribution, education, and cultural food and medicine activities
• Composting facility nearby
• Elders parking
• Located centrally near fresh food and medicines

The cost to create the Longhouse Food Hub centre would cost $1,500,00 - $2,500,000 depending on scope and scale. 

Support Barns, Shelters, and Roof Space

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: 

• Seed saving 
• More all-weather training
• Shelters for elders, youth, and people with disabilities during community visits and events
• Weather protection for tools and equipment

The cost for barn-building tends to be $30-$100/ sq ft, depending on the scope of the building or shelter.

Support Childcare for Trainees

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. 

Some Ideas:

• Support a local Indigenous entrepreneur to start a childcare business, possibly on our site, which would be actively supported by Tea Creek. 
• Support Tea Creek to add a child care space on site. 
• Provide funding for trainees and participants to hire their own in-community childcare.