By Julie Lomboy
(Confederated Tribes of Grand Ronde)
Executive Assistant to the Director
Elderberry Wisdom Farm will hold two more volunteer events this winter! One is Saturday, February 22 and the other on Saturday, March 15 from 10 am to 1 pm. We are inviting the community to join us, so you can check out our VolunteerMatch post and sign up to join us here! You can also reach out to me, Julie Lomboy at julie@elderberrywisdom.org.
Here at Elderberry Wisdom Farm, we love to connect with the community around us, and during these Saturday volunteer events. Our loyal volunteers have been offering their support to the development of our farm and native plant nursery, and we like to share with them what makes EWF unique. They have been curious how we integrate Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK) with modern science, why we emphasize the importance of strengthening the biodiversity of our soil, and how we are supporting conservation practices of our partners at their work sites through experiential service-learning activities.
It is a priority for us to offer our land as space that is safe physically and emotionally for our team and community. Through open communication, a trauma informed lens and utilizing indigenous values, we have been successful practicing this. Several volunteers continue to return due to not only enjoying being outdoors and helping with the labor, but they also have relished our space and the community we are creating.
In December, we hosted a lovely winter solstice volunteer event and were able to fill our last recessed garden bed with soil, mulched plants throughout the property along with removing more unwelcome plants (invasives). When the weather turned, we went into the classroom to sit back, drink some tea and engage in conversation about our work and the values, such as reciprocity and kindness, that indigenous communities practice. In January, we had one volunteer, but we still had a great time and got a lot of work done, mostly spreading mulch around the fall tree and shrub plantings.
We will be holding a few more volunteer events this winter to finish several tasks that need attention. We are planting about 50 more plants throughout our diverse oak woodland and forested property. We will need help mulching in preparation for the cold season. We will also be potting some bareroot plant starts expected in January.
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