Winter Update 2025: Power Grows from the Land!

Power Grows from the Land 🌱

Dear friends,

At a time when the future appears difficult and uncertain, we remember what our ancestors have always known: all power grows from the land. No matter what unfolds, land offers our communities the possibility of sustenance, safety, home, memory, and endurance.

The land holds us so that we can hold each other.

That’s why it matters so much that our communities have equitable access to the ground that sustains us, and that’s why we do this long-haul work to welcome land back into relations of kinship and commons.

We’ve been quiet this year on the news front, but it’s not for lack of things to share. Our energy has been on the work, and it’s often hard to tell the stories when you’re right in the middle of them!

Amid ongoing struggles to defend and support frontline communities from Wabanakik/Maine to Palestine, here’s some of what we’ve been up to in 2025:

🍃 Finding a long-term home for Generations Retreat and Grow Farm! (see more below).

🍃 Co-facilitating a year-long learning journey with 40+ regional conservation organizations with First Light – learning to recenter, relearn, and return land & wealth to Wabanaki care.

🍃 Supporting the ongoing development of the Wolankeyutomone kisi apaciyewik Fund, led by the Wabanaki Commission on Land & Stewardship

🍃 Launching a Community Infrastructure Revolving Fund that will support land stewards in financing housing and other needed structures. We’re starting with our first start-to-finish affordable housing project, in collaboration with Last Girl First Sanctuary!

🍃 Working on our second land return to Bomazeen Land Trust, which will connect two previously returned parcels in the Berry Pond watershed.

🍃 Continuing to fundraise and plan for Presente! Maine’s community center in the Portland area. We’ve raised $1.6M and, with new partnerships in the works, we’ll soon be ready to make a successful offer when the right building appears.

🍃 Restructuring our staffing and organizational governance to bring us into closer alignment with our core values, and to more effectively empower our BIPOC leadership and our land steward members.

🍃 Supporting our growing community of land stewards and collaborators, including Journey ONEderland, Presente! Farm, La Finca Cooperative, Full Circle Willow, and Generations Retreat and Grow Farm, Last Girl First Sanctuary, and Wild Mountain Cooperative, among others.

Thank you to all of you who have supported, and continue to support, this work with money, time, land, and care. We can’t do it without you!

Please consider pledging a recurring monthly donation and becoming a Land Justice Sustainer.

Updates from the Land
(snapshots shared by Land Stewards)

La Finca Cooperative 🌿

“This season has highlighted our commitment to building the black farmer ecosystem here in Maine. Through relationship building, skill sharing, mutual aid and regular connection with other black farmers like Soulful Soils, Black Earth Farm, and Spoke & Feather, we have begun to see how powerful the network here is, and the potential for its increased impact.

“We started out the year hosting a MOFGA sponsored BIPOC affinity space gathering at the farm which brought agriculture and food focused folks from all across the state together for a day of connection, healing, and growth.

“We also hosted the members of Black Farmer Fund for a volunteer day and introduced them to the land and community here with the hope of building out their network of support for farmers in the state of Maine.

Our Successes:

• Raised 450lbs of organic halaal chicken
• Expanded rabbit breeding program
• Opened new fields for vegetable production
• Began partnerships with Halaal Hali Cuisine/Lewiston-Auburn School District to bring fresh halaal produce to school lunches
• Offered Solidarity Shares of organically raised produce & eggs to local families
• Built a partnership with 5 Pillars Butchery

Full Circle Willow 🌿

“This is Full Circle Willow’s second fall growing at Wild Mountain. The 35 varieties of willow are expressing their qualities and got so tall this year! Irrigation that seemed silly in May has proved invaluable in the drought. A few varieties have already lost most of their leaves and harvesting began in November!

“Full Circle Willow vended at the 5th Tender Table BIPOC Night Market in Congress Square September 14th. This was a lovely event all around! I am experimenting with outlets for my crafts and this event was a first of its kind for me.

“Adinah welcomed 9 members of the Braiding Seeds Fellowship to meet the willow at Wild Mountain. We picked apples and got soaked in the much needed rain! That night we stayed over in Embden and took a tour of Johnny’s Seeds the next morning.

“We then ventured over to Kessi Watters-Kimball and her family at Mawiomi Garden in Starks. We were welcomed by members of Kessi’s community & Bomazeen Land Trust and had a sweet time by the Sandy River! So much learning, sharing and heartfelt connections in Ckuwaponahkik.

“On October 4, Adinah brought a willow coffin to a half day workshop in Rockland, Caring for and Letting go of the Body, hosted by Midcoast Maine Green Burial, at which author and green burial/home funeral advocate Lee Webster, Chuck Lakin, and Leona Oceania spoke on end of life logistics and paperwork. Julie Lanoie, a hospice and home care nurse, led us through a hands-on practice of cleaning, preparing and moving the body after death. I learned so much and appreciated the opportunity to deepen connections with like-minded home funeral and green burial enthusiasts, and learn more about caringly navigating this far-too-often-overlooked inevitability.”

Generations Retreat and Grow Farm 🌿

“This year has been one of planting seeds; both in the soil and in the spirit of what’s to come. Generations Retreat & Grow Farm (GRGF) is a BIPOC-founded nonprofit located on 24 acres in Avon, Maine – Wabanaki Territory. This beautiful space in Avon was gifted by Steve and Lynda Norton. You can read more about this special place in their note below.

“GRGF’s mission is to empower families to rejuvenate their mind, body, and spirit by connecting deeply with earth, nourishing foods, and transformative all encompassing wellness practices. This fall, our farm is alive with growth; apple trees, community trails, and the laughter of families reconnecting with land and each other.

“We’ve been working hard to transform this space into a thriving outdoor retreat for healing, family wellness, and nature-based education. Families and volunteers have joined us on the land for stewardship days, helping to clear trails, remove debris, and begin shaping what will become the Sandy River Story Trail: a walking path designed to honor earth, history, and the stories that connect us. We’re also creating a sustainable compost toilet to ensure the space remains clean and healthy for future gatherings.

“We also began the transformation of our barn into a multi-use community retreat center, a project that will soon provide a safe and welcoming space for family wellness workshops, retreats, and cultural programming. Each nail, each trail cleared, and each structure improved brings us one step closer to realizing our vision of an accessible, restorative environment for families across Maine.”

A note from Steve and Lynda Norton about the land in Avon, newly stewarded by Generations Retreat & Grow Farm:

“On behalf of the extended Norton family, Steve and Lynda sincerely thank Land in Common and their Wabananki partners for helping them secure the future of the old family farm in Avon. The Norton family had lived and worked in and around Avon since the early 1800s, and the farm in Avon (called the “Norton Place”) was the home where Steve’s grandfather grew up at the turn of the last century. The Avon farm and forest, with its beautiful views of the Sandy River, have been part of our family for five generations now, and we are profoundly grateful that the land will continue to be treated with respect, to offer opportunities to those who will care for it — especially indigenous peoples who are the original stewards of the land — and to protect the natural environment that means so much to our future. We have no doubt that Steve’s parents and grandparents would be very pleased at this outcome, knowing that the land has been placed in such good hands.”

Thank you Steve and Lynda for your trust,

and for your deep commitment to the land! 💚

Maine Solidarity Fund is a rapid response, mutual aid fund that supports Immigrant and Trans Mainers facing escalating threats to their safety, dignity, and basic rights. Learn more and donate here!

Learn how to effectively report activity to help protect our communities from ICE’s terrror campaign, and consider volunteering as a hotline verifier or operator. Learn more here.