The Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP) is a Native, woman-led nonprofit serving Lakota youth ages 4-18 on the Cheyenne River Sioux reservation in South Dakota.

CRYP serves the community by offering safe and healthy spaces, fostering healthy choices and life practices, strengthening connections to Lakota culture, teaching valuable job and life skills, and creating opportunities for a more vibrant and secure future.

Through its Garden Club, Food Sovereignty Internships, and Indigenous Cooking Internships, youth have access to education and healthy food that has the capacity to change eating and lifestyle habits at a young age. CRYP’s Winyan Toka Win (Leading Lady) Garden is a 3+ acre pesticide free learning laboratory guided by traditional principles and incorporating Lakota values, including generosity, spirituality, wisdom, respect, courage, honesty, and patience.

Through programs like the Home Garden Project and Watakuye Youth Camps, Sicangu Community Development increases food security for youth while making access to nutritious food more convenient for their community.

The Home Garden Project provides nutritious food to families by aiding them in growing and harvesting home gardens. The Watakuye Youth Camps aim to help Sicangu youth reconnect with themselves, their identities and their culture.

These projects provide youth with the skills and resources to advocate for themselves when it comes to their food and what they eat, while reinvigorating interest in and access to culturally relevant foods that will nourish bodies, minds, and spirits.

FEED aims to increase awareness of traditional food systems among individuals and organizations in the Native and non-Native community. It works to improve Native health outcomes through revitalizing ancestral food and health traditions in a modern context; transform local food systems to sustainably incorporate the area’s traditional food sources; and activate a culture of health derived from the health of the land and place-based knowledge.

FEED serves the youth of the Muckleshoot Tribe by engaging them to identify their needs. The organizations works to address gaps in cultural education and food access. Its programs focus on leadership development, cultural and personal enrichment, and traditional medicine and foods.

The California Indian Museum’s ACORN program trains Native youth ages 11 to 18 to plan, lead, and enhance a traditional food business as it engages them in revitalizing traditional food systems in their region. Youth learn about nutritional aspects of California Indian traditional foods, and become immersed in the very active food ways as they steward and gather acorn and other traditional ingredients to make Acorn Energy Bites with guidance from Tribal elders.

By centering Native youth as traditional food ways leaders, the California Indian Museum seeks to instill in them a better understanding of nutrition and the necessity for securing it and the ability to innovate solutions. ACORN strengthens the connections between Native youth and traditional ecological knowledge of their ancestral territories, positioning them to become experts and leaders in environmental stewardship and climate change mitigation through restoring the relationship between Indigenous peoples and their homelands and combating erasure and settler colonialism through increasing access and control of cultural resources.

Inspired by the idea that summers should be a special time for Zuni kids when they explore their lands, learn new things, make new friends, and have fun, a small group of community members planned the inaugural ZYEP summer camp in 2009.

That first camp was a huge success for kids and adults alike, and it helped instill a belief that together Zuni people could contribute to the healthy development of Zuni youth. The results of this early work grew into a year-round schedule of fun and meaningful youth programs to more than 800 youth annually, free of charge.

ZYEP is committed to being there for every future generation of Zuni youth. With a strong positive outlook for both children and the nonprofit, its programs are set to enrich the lives of Zuni youth for generations to come.

Partnership With Native Americans (PWNA) works with a network of tribal partners to provide immediate relief and support long-term solutions for strong, self-sufficient Native American communities. Much of its work centers around material aid, health and educational support, and community-based services.

One of the largest Native American charities to work in Indian Country year-round, PWNA’s service area is concentrated in 9 priority states and encompasses Pine Ridge, Rosebud, Navajo, and other high-need reservations. Scholarships and disaster relief services are offered nationwide.

PWNA’s programs include Train the Trainer, which focuses on healthy cooking, food as medicine, and Native food history, targeting those working in K-12 grades and in other settings. Project Grow supports the creation of individual and community gardens, helping to build sustainable food sources that improve lives.

First Nations Development Institute has helped to strengthen American Indian economies and support healthy Native communities since its inception in 1980.

First Nations, with the support of individual, foundation, corporate, and tribal donors, strives to improve economic conditions for Native Americans through technical assistance and training, advocacy and policy, and direct financial grants.

Its core values and guiding principles are focused on serving Native communities, empowering people, advancing innovative program strategies, and nurturing trust and responsibility.

As part of this work, First Nations recognizes that the health of Native communities begins with access to nutritious food. The organization helps build up Native agriculture and sustainable food systems, keeping children and families healthy.

Dakota Rural Action (DRA) grew from a need for sustainable, organized leadership to help through a farm crisis in 1985. Its mission is to build grassroots leadership through community organizing. DRA’s initiatives aim to give people a strong voice in decisions affecting their quality of life.

DRA organizes people, builds leadership, and forms strong allied relationships to support its cause. Its impact can be seen through the protection of environmental resources, resilient agricultural systems, and policy changes that strengthen community and culture.

DRA envisions an active and engaged membership promoting healthy food, agricultural, and energy systems that in turn protect natural resources for current and future inhabitants of South Dakota.

Since 2010, DRA has been working on Farm to School issues, educating children about healthy foods and gardening, developing in-class activities, and bringing students to visit farms.

Since 1992, the Oyate Teca Project has worked to create programs and services that improve the lives of those living within its site on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.

The Oyate Teca Project promotes and strengthens culture through storytelling, song, dance, traditional foods, and arts and crafts. In addition to preserving traditions, it brings educational support that helps grow financial literacy and youth leadership, among other things.

Through recreation activities, sports, and health initiatives, it provides many children in the community with fun and nutrition they may not have access to otherwise.