Hi friends! Here’s a thread about the #GrannyGarden movement in Bella Bella — something to brighten your feed. I’m Jess, and I’m NOT a garden expert.

I *am* the Executive Director of a Haíɫzaqv nonprofit called @qqsprojects that’s been delivering grassroots, community-led programming in Bella Bella for 22 years. We specialize in deep community building out on the land — hard to do during a pandemic!

We’ve been running food security / community garden programs over the last ~7 years. We grow food at our field site to feed families/kids attending our seasonal programs, and started a community garden in Bella Bella in 2016/17. We usually collaborate with our Health Centre...

...to dispatch a team of gardeners in the summer who can support people with their home gardens too. It’s fun work but it’s never been the biggest thing on our plate. Until now!

There’s a ton of anxiety and uncertainty in the air. We all feel it. Bella Bella is remote and our supply chains and connectivity to the outside world feel tenuous as we see the commercial services that bring our freight, groceries, and so much more being scaled back.

So we pivoted the delivery model for our food security work and introduced the world to GRANNY GARDENS! Granny Gardens are our answer to Victory Gardens. They’re about giving people a sense of agency/power amid uncertainty and localizing our food supply to make it more resilient.

We invite our community members to channel the strength and resilience of the matriarchs whose plant knowledge contributed to keeping our people fed through every crisis we’ve ever endured. Gardening IS an ancestral practice and we can carry it on!

Haíɫzaqv territory is huge. Our people gathered in the village of Bella Bella ~1900 as the few Haíɫzaqv people (around 1%) who didn’t succumb to influenza and smallpox banded together here. We are the descendants of those who survived epidemics.

We can take nothing for granted, but we can all benefit from channeling the strength of those who came before us.

So what do Granny Gardens look like in practice?

I’m taking all the supplies @qqsprojects had sourced for our 2020 food security programs and giving it away.

We distribute soil + curated selections of seeds to anyone who wants to try their hand at planting a Granny Garden. So far, that’s 57 families and counting.

We run a community sawmill and have a crew of labourers who were in the midst of building a new Haíɫzaqv wellness centre when the pandemic hit. I’m trying to avoid layoffs for as long as I can, through the whole pandemic if possible, and some staff have switched to assembling...

...planter boxes at home that we’re giving away.

And I’m delivering gardening tutorials via social media, Haíɫzaqv Radio, and FaceTime to deliver customized support to our Granny Gardeners.

There’s an amazing community of Granny Gardeners getting their hands dirty. And you know what? While everyone is hunkered down at home practicing physical distancing, gardening is good for our physical and mental health!

We’re doing our level best to keep up with the demand for supplies as this movement grows. In a time of deep uncertainty it gives me profound joy and hope to see people stepping up and taking control of their family’s food security. It’s a long road, but we’re walking!

I’ve got to give a special shoutout to UBC Botanical Gardens who just pledged an amazing seed donation for us to redistribute in the community!

If you want to share seeds, you can mail them to Box 786, Bella Bella, BC, V0T1Z0. Or you can donate here: https://www.canadahelps.org/en/charities/qqs-eyes-projects-society/

To support this newly scaled-up work, we’re building a basic greenhouse where I can mass-start plants to give away and hopefully increase people’s success rate. We started building it today!

In many ways it feels like 2020 is a dumpster fire. I’m heartbroken that @qqsprojects will likely be unable to deliver most of its core programs due to COVID19. But we can do this. We can do Granny Gardens.

So here’s my spark of joy. Each day,
I work in my garden with my children, and I support others to build their gardens, and I daydream about a day when COVID19 slows down so I can share the beautiful food I’m growing with the people I love best in this world.

The #GrannyGarden movement is an act of love in a time when many of the things we rely on have become unstable. We’re growing love and growing food and carrying on our ancestors’ work while we do it. Ǧiáxsix̌a for following along!

Tagging some of @qqsprojects’ friends and supporters who might want to know what’s up! @TidesCanada @natureunited_ca @coastfunds @CFNGBI @Raincoast @faisal_moola @ChrisDarimont @Gillwave @UBCgarden @WilburforceFdn @WeyktKris @JenniSchine @taylorbachrach