Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture
Hopi Tutskwa Regional Food Hub
We aim to cultivate a healthy and robust food system for current and future generations.
As a community based organization, we work to address a wide range of issues that impact Hopi people, including growing culturally significant food, stewarding traditional seeds, restoring local watersheds and foodsheds, developing sustainable housing, and renewable energy, developing business opportunities, and supporting regional Land Stewardship. Our work is focused on equipping ourselves and our community with the tools to improve lives, families, clans, and villages.
Growing food sustainably, in traditional ways, and with community has led to the development of a mission rooted in growing a robust and resilient local food system. Tribal resiliency and strength come from being able to feed your own community while building a strong network of farmers, food processors, vendors, producers, and consumers. Infrastructure on the Hopi reservation is limited, so creating a collaborative community space where individuals can gather, access computers, connect to the internet, attend educational events, learn how to prepare healthy nutritious foods, enjoy delicious meals together, and process the harvest will greatly improve the capacity of local businesses, individuals, and our community. This will all have resounding positive effects throughout the Hopi reservation and surrounding tribal communities and will boost the regional food system.
Our Food Hub will feature functional coworking spaces, a community kitchen, passive solar greenhouse, cold storage, seed sanctuary, and a wrap-around porch for outdoor gathering. This space will promote and foster the development of emerging local food businesses while increasing access to fresh and wholesome foods that will improve our community's nutrition and health, generate employment opportunities, and ultimately increase community self-reliance and self-efficiency.
Thanks to funding partnerships with the USDA, NDN Collective, and other funding partners, we hired an all-Hopi construction crew and began transforming an old rundown and unsafe mechanics garage into a vibrant community space. See our process and timeline below to learn more about our journey to reimagine, transform, remodel, and reconstruct.
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Our Story: Community Building & Collectivity
Our Process
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Our process of decision-making and planning that led to the development of the Hopi Tutskwa Regional Food Hub is unique and reflects our commitment to building community. This includes the following:
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Ecological Design Team Charettes: Since 2018 we hosted multiple design charettes where community collaborators, designers, sustainability experts, staff and board members came together to share detailed practical visions for the design of community space (s). Together we developed initial conceptual design for a Long-term new build out of a Regenerative Learning Center at Hopi.
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Community Visioning: During and after the Covid-19 pandemic, we hosted virtual and in-person retreat gatherings where community collaborators, staff, and board members came together to begin the initial visioning for creating a community-based home for the organization.
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Architectural Drawings/Collaboration: We collaborated with multiple professional architectural firms and engineers to develop planning to design and build a long term vision of building a new regenerative facility in the Hopi community. Since land tenure is complex on the reservation and our preliminary design would take extensive fundraising and necessary agreements and partnerships with Villages and the Tribe would need to be nurtured, we agreed on moving forward with a renovation/remodel of our existing rented office space to grow a regional small scale food hub.
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Partnership with Land & Building Owner: We generated strong partnership with land owner Mr. Darrell Nehoitewa to secure a 25-year lease and agreement to proceed with renovation/ remodel of his current building. As an ardent supporter of Hopi nonprofits, Mr. Darrell Nehoitewa was eager to see his land and facility be improved for the use and benefit of the Hopi community and the work of Hopi Tutskwa Permaculture.
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Resource Mobilization: Our Leadership Team including staff and board members began development of a fundraising plan and developed a core grant proposal, and began cultivating partnerships with funding partners and technical experts. We developed phasing/timeline for our project, and generated a budget to mobilize resources for the remodel/renovation.
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Starting the Journey: The space was in bad shape, although we were using part of the building as office/cowork/meeting space it was extremely inefficient and uncomfortable, cold in the winter and hot in the summer. Part of the building was in disrepair, an old garage with a caved-in roof, old equipment and hazardous waste from an old mechanics shop, and foundation and walls cracked and exposed. Prior to our extensive remodel/renovation, the building was in a state of disrepair for decades.
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The Journey: Renovation/Remodel
Timeline & Journey
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2018-2020: We partnered with architects and designers to render full architectural drawings and plans for the food hub. This became our blueprint and north star for the remodel and renovation process.
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2021-2023: We began Phase One of our remodel plan which included extensive remodeling of our current community space to develop a small-scale Hopi Tutskwa Regional Food Hub. Our staff began cleaning out the garage, organizing and sorting, hauling trash, disposing of hazardous waste, and clearing out the entire space. The old roof rafters and materials were taken down, interior walls and openings were identified for demolition, existing block walls were filled with concrete, the foundation was reinforced, and more staff was hired to begin the roof reconstruction. We partnered with the Ancestral Lands Hopi program to access Ponderosa Pine timbers for the post and beam roof structure and timbers were hauled from Flagstaff, processed, shaped and assembled. Once the roof structure began to take form we hired additional staff to lead the construction which includes an all-Hopi construction crew consisting of eight construction professionals who are focused on executing our building construction plan. In 2023 we completed Phase One of our Regional Food Hub, which included a complete roof replacement, structural permanent wall replacement, reinforcing existing foundation, exterior hardscaping, interior cleaning and removal/remediation of hazardous waste, interior renovation, installing new windows, exterior insulation and stucco to improve energy efficiency, and building ADA compliant restrooms. We used local, sustainably harvested ponderosa pine for the roof and porch, and our Hopi crew harvested local sandstone to build piers and showcase traditional Hopi masonry.
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2024-2025: We are currently nearing completion of Phase Two, which includes new construction of a passive solar greenhouse for year-round food production, and the installation of essential kitchen appliances such as cabinets, countertops, sinks, dishwashers, range units, and ovens. This phase also finalizes our walk-in cold storage space and seed sanctuary. Additionally, we are purchasing a refrigerated Sprinter Van to transport locally grown produce, fruit, and other food for our CSA and Food Hub programming.
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2026 & Beyond: With support from the Native American Agriculture Fund (NAAF), we are in progress for Phase Three, which will implement our Operational Plan for the Hopi Tutskwa Regional Food Hub. We are looking forward to hosting our soft opening in Spring 2026 and offering community-based programming!