Native Food Sovereignty Fellowship

A key part of Seeds of Native Health is supporting localized efforts to improve Native nutrition and food sovereignty. A prime example of this work is the Native Food Sovereignty Fellowship – a cadre of 21 fellows working with 10 low-resource Native American communities across the country to help establish and stabilize food sovereignty efforts, food systems, and tribal economies.

The SMSC’s Seeds of Native Health campaign partnered with the Corporation for National Community Service and the Indigenous Food and Agriculture Initiative to develop this AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer program. The tribe provided a $200,000 gift to help fund the program, the first time in VISTA’s history that a tribe provided funding to deploy volunteers across the country.

VISTA members provided much-needed grassroots capacity to help reduce the number of poor and food-insecure communities in Indian Country.