The Quaker Fund for Indigenous Communities provides grants to Indigenous communities enabling their work to build cultural, economic, environmental, and social well-being. We give priority to projects created and carried out by Indigenous peoples of a one-time nature: pilot projects and seed money to help initiatives which serve a community get off the ground. One organization we have supported this past year is Native Roots Farm Foundation (NRFF) for their work rematriating culturally meaningful plants.
NRFF is an organization focused on reclaiming, cultivating, and celebrating Native relationships with land, plants, and community for the next Seven generations. It is a Native (Nanticoke) woman-led organization, founded with a mission to protect open spaces and celebrate Indigenous cultures – in particular, the Nanticoke and Lenape communities – who have called Delaware and the surrounding region home since time immemorial.
Nanticoke Squash were cultivated by and named after the Nanticoke people but few members of the Nanticoke, Lenape, and Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape (NJ) communities, as well as the general public, were aware of this plant until NRFF first helped rematriate it in 2022. This year, in addition to sharing Nanticoke Squash seeds and seedlings with local Indigenous people, NRFF is leading a partnership that is growing culturally significant varieties of The Three Sisters – Lenape and Nanticoke varieties of Corn, Bean, and Squash plants. This is to share and reconnect their fruits with local Lenape, Nanticoke, and Nanticoke Lenni-Lenape people, some of whom have worked alongside community partners to sow, tend, and harvest these plants. While The Three Sisters are a part of most Iindigenous communities in the United States, these Nanticoke and Lenape varieties are specific to this region.
These three crops not only support each other as they grow, they have been critically important foods to Native Americans, and are particularly nourishing. Corn, beans and squash are a complete nutritional package with carbohydrates from the corn, protein from the beans (they provide the missing amino acids in the corn) and essential vitamins and minerals from the squash.
- CORN ~ the tall corn provides support for the beans vines to grow on.
- BEANS ~ add nitrogen into the soil to fertilize the corn and squash. These can be fresh or dried beans.
- SQUASH ~ grows low to the ground which shades soil and helps the ground retain water and also helps prevent weeds. This refers to both winter and summer squash.
NRFF first helped reunite local tribal members with Nanticoke Squash in 2022. Between 2022 and 2023, they engaged nearly 50 people with the plant. So far in 2024, they have engaged more than 35 people with Nanticoke Squash.
To learn more about the Native Roots Farm Foundation and ways to support it, see their website: NativeRootsDE.org | Instagram | Facebook
To learn more about the Quaker Fund for Indigenous Communities visit: https://www.pym.org/grants/quaker-fund-for-indigenous-communities/
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Courtney Streett (Nanticoke Indian Tribe) co-founded Native Roots Farm Foundation (NRFF) and uses her knowledge of Indigenous communities, horticulture, and visual storytelling to lead the organization. Prior to NRFF, Streett was a television news producer at CBS News and a digital news producer Business Insider. She received an MS from Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism and wrote her thesis on the local food movement. She earned a BA in Environmental Studies and a BA in Africana Studies from Wellesley College. She focused her undergraduate studies on environmental justice and conducted research in the college’s greenhouses comparing plant responses to organic and conventional growing methods.
