The Common Acre

Mission

The Common Acre connect Black, Indigenous and People of Color to the land and culture.

Description

The Common Acre provides a suite of programs that preserve and educate about indigenous culture through the stewardship of native plants and traditional food sources, and through the transmission of song, dance, and language.

We help steward a 1.5 acre site in Rainier Beach (owned by yəhaw̓ Indigenous Creatives Collective) to establish and harvest native food sources like camas and chocolate lily and to educate the public about indigenous land and water management practices. We host work parties open to the public monthly, which reach on average 80 people per workshop, and last five hours. At these monthly work parties, we also offer workshops on native food preparation specifically for local Native people, particularly Coast Salish and Alaska Native, to reconnect with their ancestral practices. 

Our programs prioritize the engagement of low-income communities and communities of color in south Seattle. We work primarily in Rainier Beach, where the majority of the population is Black and Latine. We also partner with Native-serving organizations to support the food security of formerly unhoused Native community members in Seattle and with refugee youth through our native environmental education program. The communities we work in have experienced redlining and consistent divestment, resulting in fewer economic opportunities, less green space/ a drastically higher heat index, greater health disparities, and an overall disconnection from the land. Over all, we reached nearly 200 people last year through community engagement.

In addition to Native plant restoration and educating about Indigenous, traditional foodways, we offer a cultural program for Unanganx people who live in the Pacific Northwest. TCA staff are 100% Unangax, Indigenous peoples from the Aleutian islands in Alaska. We offer traditional Unangax song, dance, and language instruction through a bi-weekly program for both adults and children. At the most recent Aleut Corporation meeting, it was announced that 29 percent of Unangax live in the Pacific Northwest, more than the population that lives on the Aleutian islands and in Anchorage.