Help Buy a Permaculture Farm for BIPOC Activists

Serenity Solidarity, a nonprofit focused on raising funds for Black and Indigenous-led land and community service initiatives, has an incredibly unique opportunity to purchase a 93-acre permaculture farm in upstate New York - right near Soul Fire Farm!! It would be incredible to be building beloved, intentional community next to Soul Fire Farm, who are very much in alignment with the things we care about: organic farming, racial justice, environmental justice, economic justice, and promoting Indigenous visibility and the Land Back movement.

We have raised a whopping $100k for our land purchase. We need your help to raise the last $90k. We only need $50k more right now to seal the deal. The owners of the land will let us pay the last $40k off over time.

About the land:

This 93-acre permaculture farm sits on land that was stolen from the Mohican people. Since this land theft, the land has never been "owned" or stewarded by any people other than white people. It sits on the Rensselaer plateau, an ecologically significant area that comprises the state’s fifth-largest forested region. The Plateau is home to a number of charismatic and threatened species, including fishers, bobcats, black bear, moose, porcupine, hermit thrush, and black-throated blue warbler. A local not-for-profit organization called the Rensselaer Plateau Alliance works to conserve and study the Plateau's ecology. For the past few years the land has been inhabited by permaculturists who have planted fruit and nut trees and shrubs (chestnuts, pear, peach, elderberry, currants, saskatoon, hazelnut, sea buckthorn) perennial vegetables, and a bordering hedgerow. Many hard-to-find perennial vegetables are established - Babington’s Leeks, profusion sorrel (never blooms and is harvestable all growing season), rare German varieties of corn salad, and more. The garden has extremely varied plantings of medicinal herbs - an herbalist would be able to walk into an herbal apothecary of plants from blue vervain, wood betony, and calamus in and around the vernal pools, to echinacea, Lady's Mantle, and Marshmallow lining paths and dotted in among the perennial vegetables. After inoculation two years ago, King Stropharia mushrooms have naturalized in the garden, and dozens of shiitake logs are established.

We plan to build a permaculture ecovillage that is led by Black and Indigenous activists, that will provide hospitality and community to refugees, the formerly incarcerated, and others who have a hard time finding housing and community. We will be following in a long tradition of hospitality-based farming communities. Help us realize this beautiful dream!