In 2025, Land In Black Hands continued a practice we hold with care: listening. Listening to the land as it reveals what it’s ready for, and listening to the people who feel called into relationship with it. Following our 2024 community visioning gathering, this year was less about rushing toward outcomes and more about activating the space with intention—testing ideas, building trust, and letting the work unfold in community.
What you’re seeing now is a beginning shaped collectively. The land is waking up. The community is gathering. And there is room here—for longtime partners and for newcomers—to help shape what comes next.
A Year of Connection and Community
Throughout the year, our circle widened through deepened local and regional partnerships, international visitors through the U.S. State Department, and participation in an urban biodiversity study with River Cities and the Cary Institute—affirming the land’s role as both a living classroom and a site of Black-led ecological stewardship.
LIBH Land Base located off Wilbur Ave in the City of Kingston
Activating the Land, Gently
This year marked a quiet shift from planning into practice. Early groundwork began for a future food forest and teaching garden, pollinator habitat was planted, and youth learning beds took shape. Volunteer learning days, youth workdays and internships, and hands-on workshops in food forestry, mushroom cultivation, herbal knowledge, and community gardening brought steady energy to the land.
Rather than rapid development, this season focused on relationships—building skills, confidence, and a shared sense of responsibility among BIPOC youth, emerging land stewards, and community members exploring what land access can look like when care is centered.
Welcome Space and Food Forest ideas
Site Plan Draft
Welcome space brush clearing begins
Installation of our apex pollinator garden
Learning, Sharing, and Being Together
The land hosted workshops, walks, and gatherings that honored multiple ways of knowing—from herbal and mushroom education to plant-as-medicine walks and intergenerational storytelling. Youth programs invited young people to explore, build, and simply be on the land, strengthening connection and curiosity through hands-on experience.
These moments—small and meaningful—continue to shape the land as a place of belonging, learning, and possibility.
Summer youth program led by The COOP Concept building an outdoor kitchen
Haywood cutting branches to clear an area for parking + Al supporting the youth and the kitchen build
Young people enjoying and appreciating the land
Youth meet some of the LIBH residents
Workshops, Visitors and Tours
Throughout the year, the LIBH land base welcomed 40+ site visits and land tours, bringing together community groups, youth, growers, funders, and academic partners for shared learning and time on the land. Multi-generational gatherings created space for meals, stories, movement, and visioning—helping to nurture a growing community of care rooted in food sovereignty, land-based healing, youth pathways, and Black agrarian traditions.
Tamara chooses a location to install a medicinal spiral garden
The finished project!
Tamara with the Ministry of Healing farm hosting their first Seed to Harvest program
Thank you Luke for teaching us all about mushrooms, from inoculation to fruiting!
Evan “Chipmunk” Pritchard and Karine “Greengirl” Gordineer guided a plants-as-medicine walk sharing plant wisdom and stories from their Algonquin elders
Costa teaches about Chinese Chestnut harvesting, Men’s group sharing stories and brainstorming land use and the Hudson Valley Alliance for Housing & Conservation Tour
Beautiful day on the land touring with Bard College’s incoming environmental policy & education graduate students
We welcomed Tashi, our first summer intern from Bard College
Gratitude
We are deeply grateful to Sky High Farm for their support, which allowed us to mill fallen trees and preserve wood for future use on the land. Additional thanks to the many individuals and partners whose labor, care, and presence made this season possible.
Special thanks to: Haywood People’s, Osei, Al, Matthew O’Neill, Kayla Patel, Alicia & Mike from FernCreek + KLT Board Members: Achva Stein, Sara Bonacquist, Megan Offner, Lisa Taranto
Other Partnerships and Collaborations
We Love the Purple Ultracross Collard Project at the Hudson Valley Farm Hub!
Food distribution partnership with Sasha from DreamGardenRainbowSnake at Rondout Garden
Step Onto the Land and Into the Work
LIBH enters 2026 with strong momentum and a clear next step forward. At the heart of this work is a long-term vision to grow into an environmental education center—rooted in Black-led stewardship, intergenerational learning, and community-centered environmental education.
Community support and donations directly help us build a thriving food forest and teaching garden, and expand hands-on programs for kids, teens, and families to learn, heal, and grow together.
We’re planting seeds for the future—and this is the moment when they need tending. Whether you offer time, resources, or care, your support helps turn vision into lived experience. The land is calling.