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[Music]
Woman (voiceover): The most amazing thing to me is the spirit that’s out here.
There’s the spirit of the farm. There’s the spirit of all the plant people,
and then there’s our spirit, which joins all of this.
Tatiana (voiceover): You feel the earth. You feel like you’re connected to the earth
when you make your own food. You help it grow; you get to eat it.
Yeah, I think you’re connected to the earth.
It’s starting to mean more to me now. I’m starting to get it.
Tatiana: I live in St. Paul, eastside St. Paul. I’ve pretty much lived there my whole life.
My mom is Native American. My dad is African American. They split up when I was pretty young.
I have a real big family. My mom doesn’t really know too much about her heritage
because she never really met her dad too much. But before he died, he got her registered, kind of like a gift to her.
So we don’t really know too much about it; we just know that we are Indian pretty much.
Ernie: I think I would like them to also understand more of their culture
and in a spiritual sense to understand it that way.
Because I think once they do that, then they start to broaden their horizons
to what we need to do to take care of the earth.
Salley: Our kids very seldom have an opportunity to have fresh food,
fresh vegetables, put their hands in the earth.
They live on concrete, and so what we wanted was an opportunity to grow a farmer,
to teach these kids about nutrition, to teach these kids how to grow it,
how to cook it, how to sell it, and bring it into their communities
so we can have healthy communities.
Canaan: I learned how to hoe. I learned about compost and soil.
First of all, dirt is what makes you dirty. And soil is the earth around us.
I learned how to weed. I learned how to harvest.
We just got done harvesting and washed the plants.
Ernie: It robs all the nutrients from the beans that we’re trying to raise here.
So it’s really important that you get them by the root.
Donna: To me, it’s like magic. You’re on the land. You’re in nature.
Everything is providing an experience and learning opportunity for you.
And it just feels good. It just gives you life.
Tatiana: I feel like coming here so I can learn about my heritage.
I’m like really interested in it, to learn about myself, who I am.
So think it’s a good way for kids to learn and to be out of trouble.
And they get to earn their own money, learn some work experience.
So I think that’s a good thing, and it makes people want to come back.
It’s fun here, you know? It’s away from the city,
away from all the electronics and stuff. It’s good here.
Donna (voiceover): Some kids carry heavy burdens and are responsible for a lot in their families,
and so they can come out here and put that aside and be kids.
Donna: A benefit of being together is building relationship,
not only to the land but to one another.
So that’s like a plus that comes out of this, that we don’t talk about.
But it’s building community and relationships.
[Music]