We take a bite out of the First Nations Garden, a healing space for the Intertribal Native community of Chicago. Co-founder Fawn Pochel (they/kwe) shares the origins of this youth-led project, the importance of establishing and maintaining relationship with plant relatives, and how the garden has transformed the neighborhood and provided a community gathering place for celebrations, education, and practicing intertribal traditions.
View the transcript for this episode.
Additional references and resources
Learn more about First Nations Garden and follow the project at @firstnationsgarden
Chi Nations Youth Council – a youth organization creating safe space for Native youth through arts, activism, and education. Follow the council @chinationsyouthcouncil
Indigenous Grounds – an emerging organization striving to create a more sustainable world. Follow the project @indigenous.grounds
Previous Take the Last Bite episodes that center food justice, the joys of growing and cooking food, and innovations in urban farming:
Queers Who Make Beers – a chat with queer and trans folks in the craft microbrewing industry working to improve working conditions for marginalized service workers
Ferrets, Farming, and Fat Kid Food – a segment about growing basil in shipping containers and a segment about cooking with taste-loss due to long-COVID
‘Chef’ is Gender Neutral – brunch baddie Catie Randazzo talks about wanting to connect queer and trans youth to service industry skills
About the podcast
Take the Last Bite is a podcast by the Midwest Institute for Sexuality and Gender Diversity. It's a direct counter to the Midwest Nice mentality— highlighting advocacy and activism by queer/trans communities in the Midwest region. Through each episode, we're aiming to unearth the often disregarded and unacknowledged contributions of queer and trans folks to social change through interviews, casual conversations and reflections on Midwest queer time, space, and place.