Tree-Generation Fest 2020: Help Make It Happen!
This fall, Tewa Women United and the Northern Youth Project are excited to launch Tree-Generation Fest and we need your help to make it happen!
“I am excited for Tree-Generation Fest because of the opportunity to learn and the effect it will continue to have throughout the trees’ life by assisting in providing food security for generations to come. It will help the community.“
-Veronica Ramirez, senior intern
THANK YOU! We have met our goal for this campaign, thanks to your generosity. If you’d like to give to support the Northern Youth Project, you may do so here. If you’d like to give a general donation to Tewa Women United, you may do so here.
WHAT IS TREE-GENERATION FEST?
We plan to purchase 50 fruit and nut-bearing trees, distribute them to 50 youth participants, and provide these youth with support and mentorship to plant these trees in their communities and learn about local environmental knowledge and practices.
Benefits of this project for youth and their communities:
- Youth will learn about trees and plants, fruit tree care, guilds, companion planting, soil health, water conservation, and rainwater harvesting.
- Youth will develop leadership capacities to benefit their communities
- Every community where a tree and its related guild is planted will benefit by having future years of fruit to harvest
Tree-Generation Fest is inspired by Tewa Women United’s annual youth event, “Regeneration Fest Española” which was held at the Española Healing Foods Oasis every fall for the past four years. Regeneration Fest is about holding space for young people to know that they are loved and cared for by their community. It was initiated in solidarity with the original Regeneration Fest event which began in Taos, NM, as a positive response advocating for youth suicide prevention.
This year, due to the impact of COVID, in lieu of a large community event and ceremonial tree planting at the Espanola Healing Foods Oasis, we have created “Tree-Generation Fest” to continue to engage youth in positive and connective ways.
HOW YOU CAN HELP
Our goal is to raise $5,000 by October 18, 2020, which will enable us to:
- Purchase 50 trees for distribution to youth in the Tewa homelands/Rio Arriba County region
- Distribute fruit trees and companion plants/seeds to young people
- Provide these youth with planting mentorship and online tutorials from TWU and NYP staff on fruit tree care, guilds, companion planting, soil health, water conservation, and rainwater harvesting
Every $100 we raise makes the planting of one tree and its related guild possible!
HOW YOUTH CAN PARTICIPATE
In order for a youth to be eligible to receive a free tree, they will need to participate in one online instructional class on how to plant a fruit tree guild and develop an artistic response to these valuable lessons that our plant relatives model and teach us about being in community, supporting and caring for each other so we can not only survive, but thrive!
Pre-registration is available here. Preference is given to regional communities and youth ages 5 (with adult help) to 25.
We would like to thank our community collaborators and donors that have already contributed to this project including Tooley’s Trees, Plants of the Southwest, and more to come. We’ll have news about sponsorship opportunities very soon.
