By Norah McLaughlin | FāVS News Reporter
Duaa-Rahemaah Hunter — a grandmother, a statewide organizer and a gardener — will host Spokane’s first Black Earth Day: Seed to Soul, a free community event set for April 18 at the Martin Luther King Jr. Family Outreach Center, 500 Stone St. The event runs from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m.
Hunter said she was inspired by her own community garden — which grows everything from turnips to cantaloupe — and by attending the Black Farmer’s Collective in Seattle.
“It was very important for me to kind of bring that in as a Black woman and to really bring the Black community together around land stewardship, food justice and environmental justice because it’s all connected,” Hunter said.
The event is focused on environmental justice, food access and land stewardship in Black communities. According to an interview with Black Lens News, Hunter said that too often, housing built for Black and low-income communities is located near factories and in food deserts. She also pointed to disparities in tree cover — wealthier neighborhoods tend to have mature trees that shade homes and lower cooling costs, while lower-income neighborhoods go without.
“Things that we don’t notice that we notice,” she said, in the interview with Black Lens News.
Spokane’s Black Earth Day will feature community speakers on environmental justice and hands-on activities including how to start a community garden and plant bingo for kids. A photo booth and photographers will document the day, and vendors will have items to hand out. The city of Spokane’s emergency preparedness team will also be on hand to discuss climate issues including wildfires and smoke, and attendees can expect composting demonstrations and seed giveaways.
Attendees will receive raffle tickets and a free meal ticket at check-in good for barbecue, Southern cuisine or a vegan soul food option. This food will be available from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. Organizers are also asking people to bring a non-perishable item to donate to the MLK Center food bank.
Jillisa Winkler, executive director of the Carl Maxey Center, said making the event fully free and accessible was a priority from the start.
“We’re excited to bring people some education and some freebies and some fun around environmental justice and food security,” Winkler said. “We were really intentional with wanting to be inclusive of all communities, and so we wanted everything to be accessible and open and free to everybody who wants to partake.”
The week before the event, Hunter hosted a film screening and community conversation on food and environmental justice April 11 at the Carl Maxey Center, according to The Black Lens. One film followed a community that stopped a toxic dumping operation and transformed the site into a farm. Another documented Black residents in Detroit who built a gardening cooperative with a shared kitchen and community hall — a model Hunter said she sees as replicable in Spokane.
For Hunter, the event is part of a bigger vision: building a collective of Black farmers and gardeners and pushing for access to land where community gardens can take root in food deserts, according to an interview with Black Lens News.
“I’ve been talking to the city, to WSDOT, about land,” she said. “How do we make community gardens in food deserts? Where are our farmers markets located?”
“I just want everyone to come together and have a good time,” Hunter said. “You know, how we really can be good stewards of the Earth and how do we come together and be sustainable.”
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