Our September Seedlings recipient is Dream of Wild Health. Round up your purchases all month long to support their work.

The mission of Dream of Wild Health is to restore health and well-being in the Native community by recovering knowledge of and access to healthy indigenous foods, medicines, and lifeways. They do this by: Creating culturally based opportunities for youth employment, entrepreneurship and leadership; Increasing access to Indigenous foods through farm production, sales and distribution; and Community outreach and education around reclaiming cultural traditions, healthy Indigenous food, cooking skills, and nutrition. Dream of Wild Health also leads the local Indigenous food movement, connecting youth and community members, through network leadership of the Indigenous Food Network and the Upper Midwest Indigenous Seed Keepers Network. Dream of Wild Health programs serve over 12,500 people each year from our youngest community members to our oldest.

Dream of Wild Health programming works across all three priorities of Food Access, Agriculture, and Environment. Our initiatives include:

Native Youth Education & Leadership Program

Dream of Wild Health’s Native Youth Education and Leadership Programs provide culturally based lessons for youth, ages 8-18. The farm provides a safe and creative learning environment where they learn about organic gardening, healthy foods, and Native cultural traditions while gaining employment and leadership skills. The Youth Leaders program is a year-round leadership development program where youth lead advocacy, outreach, and training, through an Indigenous lens.

Farm & Food Access

In 2019, the Dream of Wild Health farm produced 7.6 tons of organic vegetables. They were able to feed hundreds of Native youth and families through our youth programs, the Four Sister’s Farmer’s Market, the Indigenous Food Share (a Community Supported Agriculture model), a workshare program (which provides an Indigenous Food Share in exchange for volunteer hours on the farm), and at community events and workshops with this food.

Seed Stewardship & Social Enterprise

Dream of Wild Health is home to one of the largest collections of Indigenous seeds in the region. The collection has been slowly growing over the last decade, with gifts of seeds pouring in from Native seed keepers, farmers, and community members across the country. Increasingly, the seed collection must be actively maintained and grown out more frequently in order to adapt the seeds to the changing climate. Over the last few years, they have developed a social enterprise plan to expand the grow out of our seed collection. The goal is to ensure a diverse, viable seed stock for future generations, to grow seed as food to reconnect this generation to an Indigenous diet, to rematriate seeds to their tribal homes, and to create a revenue source to ensure the sustainability of this work into the future.

Community Outreach, Events & Workshops

Year-round, Dream of Wild Health outreach staff is building community, teaching about and advocating for food sovereignty, hosting workshops and large events, and supporting other organizations in our community. In 2019, they reached over 12,500 people through outreach programs, including 1,700 youth and a majority Native people. Community outreach includes sampling Indigenous recipes from food grown at the farm, leading a foraging walk or bringing foraged foods into local high schools, teaching about saving Indigenous seeds or making hominy, or presenting their model for food systems change through the Indigenous Food Network. In 2019, they hosted the 3rd annual Indigenous Food Tasting, drawing over 700 people and featuring six Indigenous chefs from around the Midwest. Youth Leaders participate in this work and gain leadership skills through outreach, public speaking, and hosting demonstrations.

Network Leadership

Working with partners is vital to the success of Dream of Wild Health programs, as they rely on the skills and expertise of other organizations to complement the work they do in community. The network building and coalition leadership work helps influence long-term, systems change in order to improve the overall health of the Native community. For example, Dream of Wild Health is the lead organizer for the Upper Midwest Indigenous Seed Keepers Network. As home to one of the largest collections of indigenous seeds in the region, they work with tribes and organizations to develop trainings on growing, protecting, preserving and sharing our Indigenous seeds. Dream of Wild Health is also a lead organizer of the Indigenous Food Network, a cohort of Native organizations dedicated to increasing Indigenous food sovereignty for our urban Native community.