By Hailey Palmer, Puyallup Tribal News
Student learning at Chief Leschi Schools will be expanded once more as staff and students broke ground on a campus food forest located by the football stadium on April 2.
In collaboration with the University of Washington, development on the space started in mid-to-late January with native plants planted in the area shortly after the groundbreaking ceremony.
Chief Leschi Schools Lushootseed Teacher and Director of Culture David Sway-la Duenas said the school is always looking for ways to expand the resources it has around campus for student learning.
“The food forest is an extension of and influenced by the work that was taking place in a more controlled setting in the Indigenous culinary garden, and also Lake Leschi,” Duenas said. “We were looking to create another outdoor space for our teachers to bring our students. … What it could mean for quite a few of our kids is a sense of agency, and a place they can go access and manipulate the natural world for a tangible end.”
Duenas is hoping students and staff make the most out of it for years to come.
“We are planting native species to this area and we will be able to reap the benefits in perpetuity,” Duenas said. “This is our idea of how this is going to affect the students forever here at Chief Leschi so long as we can maintain it.”
Duenas noted the food forest is an area only the Puyallup Tribe has access to which means more to the students, he said.
As long as Chief Leschi has the capability to keep up with the food forest, Duenas said more development and expansion is definitely in the future.
Here are excerpts of Tribal Council remarks at the groundbreaking.
Chairman Bill Sterud
“This is important work. This is real work. This is what our environment needs. This is what our fish need, what our birds need, what we need to breathe. … This is the planting of a seed. … It’s beautiful, I love it. I want to thank the University of Washington for helping us out, helping our land out. … I come out here and my heart just gets really, really happy to see that this kind of work takes place, this kind of learning takes place and it will follow with you wherever you go. Thank you for this project.”
Councilwoman Annette Bryan
“I think food sovereignty is really important in the climate we’re in and the environment we live in, so I’m really excited to see the food forest come in addition to all the other work that’s been done here at Lake Leschi. I just want to thank the school board, Council, the University of Washington, Chief Leschi staff and most of all, Chief Leschi students, you guys are the future and you’re doing great work here and I raise my hands to you guys.”
Councilwoman Anna Bean
“I want to raise my hands to Don Brummett for taking, hearing and listening to the folks that are out here and what they want to do. I’m fortunate as one of the council members who actually got a tour of this property not long ago. I’m so excited for all of the students at Leschi to have a living classroom. … The students are actually the ones who came out here and cleared out this property and did a lot of the work here. This is a living garden and space made for Leschi by Leschi. I think that’s something to be proud of.”
Councilman Fred Dillon
“Yesterday, I got a tour of this Lake Leschi for the first time ever. For all the times I’ve come on out to the school I’ve never been to Lake Leschi, so to see what it is right now and to hear what it was before is truly amazing. For a lot of us, we’re supposed to be true believers that we’re stewards of this land. We take care of our land, we take care of all this and give back. To me, what I see is a lot of giving back, a lot of healing in this land. … I just want to raise my hands to everybody that was involved in making this happen.”
Here are comments from members of the school board.
School Board Chairman Robert Daniels
“I just want to thank you guys and I can’t wait to see this forest go up, get bigger and see this water be healthy (for) those fish you guys released.”
School Board Vice Chairman Jay Simchen
“We talked about all of the educational opportunities out here and all the things we could do with this land. … We’ve come a long way. … This is one more phase in the development system of Lake Leschi.”
School Board Member Peter Kalama
“I’m thankful to all the kids. … there’s a lot of good stuff there cleaning up and rebuilding all this. It’s turned into a garden and it’s nice.”
