MFEI Hardin Farm to School Pemmican Project

The primary benefits of this project are nutritional, spiritual and educational. The nutritional benefits include supporting a local and diverse diet including chokecherries, dried meat, healthy fats and portion sizes. Spiritually, this project aims to shift thinking from traditional foods being reserved for ceremonial occasions to more accessible and common with sacred understanding. Collectively, the pemmican project builds confidence in families making healthier choices together.

This is the Pemmican Project presentation from the MFEI Network meeting in May 2021.

Here is a video of how to make Pemmican from Hardin Farm to School.

 

This project intends to lay the framework for incorporating more traditional food practices throughout the classroom, cafeteria and community. The primary educational benefit is to connect students to their food, land and culture through a shared experience of creating foods together.

The Pemmican Project presentation outlines how Hardin Farm to School went about planning their Pemmican lesson and makes suggestions on how they needed to pivot from their plans.

Although it is important to share the process and stories from this project, Hardin Farm to School recognizes the history of misrepresentation and misuse of stores from this community. Therefore, the Pemmican project steering committee will provide materials for other communities to learn, but the sharing capacities of this project will be decided upon by community partners including students, parents, and teachers. MFEI has the Pemmican project presentation and no other lesson materials are shared at this time.

The pemmican project will serve future generations by modeling experiential learning, building capacity for traditional food knowledge in schools, and generational empowerment in connection with land and food resources

For more information about this project connect with Ellie Ross – [email protected]

Elle Ross

Topics

  • Farm to Institution