Community Land-based Education Workshops and Access

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!

Transportation Vehicles for Food and Inputs

Transportation Vehicles for Food and Inputs

We frequently have to travel to deliver food and vegetables, and pick up supplies. Currently, we don't have appropriate vehicles for this task, especially given the scale and growth of Tea Creek. We currently use an old minivan without ability to keep food cool. We need to do multiple trips from Tea Creek to communities to deliver. 

Some Ideas:

  • Loan or donation of transport van for cargo
  • Support to purchase a new transport van
  • Support to purchase an insulated and cooled trailer that could be towed

Transport for Participants and Trainees

Support Transport of Trainees and Participants

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.

Some Ideas:

  • Loan, donate, or support the purchase of a 15-passenger van(s) to provide rides to and from Tea Creek and provide transportation for local field trips.
  • Provide funding for fuel and driver costs.
  • A plug-in hybrid or diesel vehicle would be a greener option.