Title: Food Sovereignty Program Coordinator
Organization: Burns Paiute Tribe
Community: Burns Paiute Tribe
Population: 402
County Served: Harney County

Meet Camille Pearce (she/they):

Originally from Louisiana, Camille moved to Oregon three years ago and has enjoyed exploring the Pacific Northwest. She has a master’s degree in Psychology and professional experience in public involvement, project management, and service & hospitality. She is beginning a mid-career shift into food systems and has a passion for cooking and all things food! She enjoys cooking, live music, and spending time with friends and family.

Over the next 11 months, she aims to immerse herself in this opportunity and deepen her understanding of food systems, food justice, indigenous history, farming, community gardening, greenhouse growing, land stewardship, and food policy. She also looks forward to her first snowy winter – drinking tea, reading books, and raising chickens!

Community and Organization:

The Burns Paiute Tribe are the descendants of the Wadatika Band of the Northern Paiutes who lived in the Great Basin area and are now located in Burns, OR. The Tribe’s aboriginal land stretches over eastern Oregon up to Washington, across to Idaho, south to Nevada, and west to California. They are a resilient people, having suffered great loss and hardship since the 1800s due to colonization. The tribe currently has 402 enrolled members and are still avid stewards of the land. In an effort to achieve tribal sovereignty, the Tribe recently created the Food Sovereignty Program and piloted the community garden project. Tribal food sovereignty empowers Native people to address poverty and find a path to preserve their culture and heritage. The Burns Paiute Tribe is in the final stages of creating their Food Sovereignty Plan with Year 1 to begin January 2025.

Projects:

This role includes supporting the development of a tribal food sovereignty plan, project management, community engagement, volunteer management, event planning, grant research/writing, networking, and garden support. The community garden and greenhouse project will be a year-long process. As summer turns into fall, harvesting crops is the main task. During fall, winterization efforts and seed saving will be underway and by April, seeds will be started in the greenhouse to plant in the summer garden.

The priority project for the first few months of service is finalizing the 5-year Food Sovereignty Plan (FSP) by the end of 2024. Priority projects will be outlined in the FSP, which will determine which projects will be completed in 2025. Preliminary projects include starting a shared kitchen/food hub, developing an orchard and berry fields, adding additional community garden spaces, implementing a youth summer garden program, hosting classes and workshops, and raising livestock.