Wind River Grow Our Own 307 received funds from The Wyoming Hunger Initiative back in December of 2020. Those funds were used to build 100 garden boxes made from lumber purchased through local stores in Riverton, Wyoming. 

Through additional donated funds, 50 more boxes were built by community volunteers. With a total of 150 garden boxes, the Grow Our Own organization plans to begin distributing garden boxes and garden supplies to the first 20 participants who have signed up beginning March 1, 2021. 

The garden box distribution will continue throughout the month of March to those who have signed up. Serving on the Board for Wind River Grow Our Own 307, Jacqueline White, Northern Arapaho is grateful to also work for the Food Banks of the Rockies. Her passion is in helping to find ways to feed the people of the Wind River Reservation. 

With Wind River Grow Our Own’s continued passions in gardening and ceremonial and medicinal plant revitalization, Co-Founder Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk says, “Now is an important time to be involved with this important work….planting trees, growing food, building garden boxes, having greenhouses, and growing foods that can be taken as a medicine.”

Sharon Wagon is a member of the Eastern Shoshone Tribe. She is the mother of Wind River Grow Our Own 307 Co-Founder Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk. Sharon works for the Eastern Shoshone Recovery Program in Fort Washakie. “Gardening has helped me to find peace in watching the flowers grow and the plants grow and also a place to free my mind by talking to the plants.” Sharon said, “I want to be more aware of what I eat in a way to help my health and to teach my grandchildren how to garden so they can be healthy.”

Healing through gardening 

Connecting through gardening

Christy Black is one of the volunteers who recently built the garden boxes for Wind River Grow Our Own 307. She said, “I was able to teach my son a skill that he wants to continue. He wants to build garden boxes. Anyone can learn. We learned it from Grow Our Own. I am grateful to have had a moment with my son and glad that we both learned how to make garden boxes. Something he will remember.”

If you would like to donate to Wind River Grow Our Own 307 you may do so by clicking here: https://www.paypal.com/donate/?hosted_button_id=99L6EDQ5R5DQE&Z3JncnB0=

Wind River Grow Our Own 307 was recently awarded a grant from the Wyoming Hunger Initiative to build a total of 100 garden boxes from purchased lumber. The non-profit applied back in October and have now begun the building right after the Christmas holiday. The 100 garden boxes are for participants of the Wind River Grow Our Own 307 program.
The program started back in April of 2020 to help in the teaching of gardening techniques and tips to aid growers, new and old, in producing their own healthy, organic food. The foods grown from gardens are great for the reduction of obesity, diabetes, and heart disease. Most of the foods we eat today are from a box in processed form or from the fast food drive-thru through which some people rely heavily on because of time and affordability.
Cooking meals, using ingredients from a garden helps promote wellness. Spices created from a garden are also beneficial to one’s daily health (https://www.heart.org/en/healthy-living/healthy-eating/cooking-skills/meal-planning/homegrown-meals)

Grow Our Own 307 will begin utilizing Zoom to meet for growing fruits and vegetables this Spring, with the invitation for all.
We are not experts and don’t expect you to be. Just come to Zoom meetings ready to learn and together we can combat food scarcity and health disparities in our community.
Follow us for updates and upcoming projects.

Upcoming Project:
[x ] In April we will begin tree planting. We have ordered chokecherry tree starts and will begin planting for our participants in late April and early May.
[x ] Starter garden kit Delivery to community will begin in April.
[x ] Garden box delivery will begin in late February and go into March.

Wind River Grow Our Own 307 wants to wish the Fremont and Wyoming Communities a safe holiday season. We thank all our funders and all those who support our efforts in the community, without your help none of this would be quite possible. 

Wind River Grow Our Own 307 celebrated the 2020 Halloween via social media by posting carved pumpkins from 31 pumpkin carving contestants who participated in the first annual event for Fremont County. The contest was open to all, but most participation came from members of the Wind River Reservation. With prizes in three categories: the most popular, the most creative, and the most scariest; majority of the entries were not your average jack-o-lantern with eyes, a nose, and a mouth. It happened to be that the most popular pumpkin was not carved at all, but had been hand painted to take the appearance of a native cowgirl with cowboy hat and dangling beaded earrings. The winner for this category was the daughter of Dawn Buffalo, 15 year old Sophia Medina. Her popular pumpkin had the most likes and most shares, and because of this, she won a Walmart gift card for $75. 

The most creative pumpkin was submitted by Kendryck Shoyo who is 8 years old and in the 3rd grade at Fort Washakie School. The creative pumpkin submitted by Kendryck was Baby Yoda. This year Wind River Grow Our Own 307 had two participants submit a carved pumpkin both resembling Baby Yoda and Shoyo took the winning prize for detail and patience.  

The most scariest pumpkin winner this year was Sharmaine Weed with her Werewolf entry. This selection was picked by numerous judges in the judging category held via video where 13 judges from the Fremont County community selected one choice for most creative and one choice for most scariest. 

The first annual pumpkin carving contest sponsored by Wind River Grow Our Own 307 was a big success filled with creativity and fun, both Founder Deneica Barrett and Executive Director Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk agree this is an event they will continue to have in the upcoming future. 

Deneica Barret: “We will definitely do this again!”

Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk: “Yes, we will do this again, it was fun!”

For the Spring of 2020, Wind River Grow Our Own was able to build raised garden boxes for interested Wind River Reservation gardeners, making a total of 30 boxes from old wooden pallets.
With donated funding, they were able to purchase wood for the building of more solid, durable boxes;10 garden boxes went to the Wind River Cares Diabetes Program and 10 went to the Saint Michael’s Mission which are both located in Ethete, Wyoming.
The lifespan of these newer wooden boxes compared to the wood pallet garden boxes are expected to last anywhere from 3 to 5 years or longer, with care.
With Covid-19 creating a spur the moment challenge of building the garden boxes at the beginning of 2020, Grow Our Own has decided they will not rush into box building in 2021 and have been busy working on the creation of 50 boxes for community members. These 50 boxes will go to participants who recieved the old wooden crate-style boxes the previous growing season.
It is the goal of Wind River Grow Our Own to build more boxes. With more funding we would be are able to create more boxes for more families.
With the Wind River Reservation population at 26,490 (2010 Census), there is more need for local homegrown foods. For gardening can help with food scarcity, but also provide care for mental health for sadness, depression, and suicide prevention. Gardening has really helped heal a few hearts in such a short time. With the need for more Wind River Reservation residents gardening, Grow Our Own can help teach gardeners the knowledge to produce food through the teachings and lessons of all Wind River Grow Our Own participants. We at Grow Our Own are continously searching for funders to help aid in our projects. Interested funders, please contact Wind River Grow Our Own 307 via email at growourown307@gmail.com

“When she told me she 76 years old I was awestruck at how active she was in picking chokecherries for members of the Wind River Reservation community,” Sally Palmer contacted Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk of Wind River Grow Our Own 307 and mentioned that the Laramie community had thousands of chokecherries that she walks by each day. She said, “It makes me sad to see so much of them go to waste.” An agreement was made that if Sally could get some volunteers to help her pick the berries, she would send them via postal mail.

“At first I thought no way can chokecherries be mailed, they will go bad,” Perez-Good Voice Elk said, “But then they arrived, and after opening the package I took a hand full of berries and instantly thought who shall I give them to, I don’t want them to go bad.” The chokecherries had made it to the Wind River Reservation.
Because of the vast expanse of the area where Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk lives on the land, home to the Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribes, Darrah at first thought…gas to get from point A to point B would be an issue. Her first instinct was to sell the berries for a small price, but the demand was so high that the berries were gone before even leaving the gas station.
With a call coming in the next day from Chesie Lee of the Riverton Peace Mission, the news was… another box of chokecherries had arrived. Once opened a note inside read, “3500 cherries carefully picked.” Was Sally Palmer counting all the chokecherries one by one, this was a question Darrah had asked.

The Native American classify chokecherries as a medicinal food. The healing properties are within the pit of the berry. Amygdalin and prunasin create hydrogen cyanide. In small quantities hydrogen cyanide can stimulate respiration and can help promote digestion. In small amounts it is also known to fight cancer cells. The fair warning is that in consumption of large amounts hydrogen cyanide is deadly and can result in serious injury or death.

The ancestors knew that all good things came with consuming the berries in moderation. This is something that is still being taught today in Native communities.

“I remember when my late grandmother would pull out her grinder and grind up chokecherries. She even ground up the pit to make chokecherry gravy,” Darrah says. “I never knew while growing up that the gravy was not only a traditional food but also contained medicinal properties.”

Today, Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk likes to learn about the different health benefits created by eating the foods of her ancestors whether through foraging or creating and growing gardens through the nonprofit Wind River Grow Our Own 307. The goal of the program is to bring back food sovereignty through gardening, and through the teaching and continued learning of medicinal food properties to aid in the health and wellness of the Wind River Reservation population.

Members of Wind River Grow Our Own 307 can be reached via email at: growourown307@gmail.com

Grow Our Own started at the beginning of the year when toilet paper and food started becoming scarce off of store shelves.

Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk and Deneica Barrett came up with a plan to utilize zoom with friends and family. “It started out with the planting of strawberries,” Barrett said, “Darrah had a plan to get us to grow our own food.”

They planted strawberries from the seed on the app Zoom and the following week they planted potatoes in a box. Technology had become their connection.

The Grow Our Own group has a Zoom meeting every Sunday starting at 11a.m. where they start each session with an introduction and reintroduction for those who are new or for others who are curious to know what others are doing. So far it has been a great way to connect and gain inspiration for what the Wind River gardening community is doing.

With gardeners from all levels of experience Wind River Grow Our Own 307’s weekly zoom has become a great way to keep everyone connected with what’s going to happen next in the Wind River/Fremont County gardening community.

Each week the zoom meetings are recorded and can be watched upon Grow Our Own’s YouTube channel.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCy12z9z-mb4Iqsxoc4QzOWw

We started out building trust within small talking circles telling each other our secrets, hurts, and traumas. Who would have known it would have turned into building gardens for our communities?

We are very fortunate to have been blessed along this journey by many funders, and the many funders to come. Gardening is a way of life and gardening is how we shall make it through this pandemic.

Gardening alleviates stress, reduces anger, and boosts feel good endorphins. It takes the panic out of the pandemic.

One of our gardening participants says, “Gardening is harder than taking care of children.”

Plants are our children too and need watering, mulching, composting, worming, and watching the food grow.

This year we were able to utilize old pallets for garden boxes our dream was/is to help our community become successful gardeners…

We learn as we go….Learn as we grow….2021 will only grow better!!!!!!

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Wind River Grow Our Own 307 was recently awarded with $4000 to go toward the food sustainability effort on and near the Wind River Reservation.

Funding provided by the United Presbyterian Church in Laramie, Grow Our Own Co-founders Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk says, the money will be used to help 50 families with gardening sustainability to have successful gardens which means helping to build fences around gardens to protect against rodents and pests. “This is number one concerns right now,” says Perez-Good Voice Elk.

We have been seeing a great need to keep gardeners motivated during trying times. “The hot heat can scorch gardens. Mulch is another great need of our gardens,” Perez Good Voice Elk says. “We will do our best to keep our participants growing.”

“Learn as we go, learn as we grow, that is our motto,” Grow Our Own 307 Co-founder Deneica Barret says, “the funders help tremendously in keeping this project going.”

With plans to get a headstart in building boxes. The nonprofit hopes to inspire even more people next year to have a green thumb and grow their own nutritional foods.

It not only helps in eliminating unhealthy ways, it helps us feel good about doing something good for others. We inspire people to be good people and in turn see it having a positive domino effect on others, it feels good,” Darrah Perez-Good Voice Elk said.

Wind River Grow Our Own 307 is a ongoing nonprofit that started during the 2020 Coronavirus Pandemic. They motivate, inspire, and educate community on how to have a successful garden during a pandemic and even after.

https://www.gofundme.com/f/1zeg5wpbg0

Click this link to donate to this food sustainability cause for gardeners on and near the Wind River Reservation with Wind River Grow Our Own 307.