“Without community, there is no liberation…” – Audre Lorde

Join Farm School NYC for our 2nd annual Food Futures Symposium on Sunday, May 3rd, to reflect on and practice Community Care as Resistance. Attend our interactive workshops, shop local vendors, dance to live music, and eat delicious food with us!

Date, Time, Location:

Sunday, May 3rd
11am-6pm
Lower East Side Girls Club, 402 East 8th Street, New York, NY 10009

Schedule:

11am Doors, Vendors Open
11:30am-11:45pm Welcome
12-3pm DJ Sunny Cheeba
12-5pm Healing Space + Childcare
12-1:15pm Herbalism Workshop
1:45-3pm Seed to Table Workshop
3:45-5pm Panel Discussion
5:00-5:15pm Raffle
5:15-6:15pm Chispa Performs
6:15-6:30pm Closing

Click the “RSVP / Donate Here!” button to register for the event and send additional donations. Pay-what-you-can entry includes a free raffle ticket and access to the workshops and panel discussion. Pay-what-you-can food options will also be available. All proceeds go toward FSNYC programming.

We take care of us! Please read our COVID Practices. Limited tests and masks will be provided on-site. Help us by testing beforehand and having a photo of your negative test results ready to show at the door.

Workshops

Intro to Ancestral Herbalism with Emi Okun 12-1:15pm

In this workshop, participants will explore the foundational principles of Spiritual Herbalism, which are rooted in African ancestral practices. In the first half of the workshop, we’ll discuss the spiritual and medicinal properties of plants, emphasizing the importance of plant medicine and how to utilize them as supportive allies for healing and liberatory practices. The second half of the workshop will be a hands-on interactive activity. Participants will have the option to make either herbal bath salts that can be used for both medicinal and spiritual purposes, or an oxymel with ACV. Emi Okun is a spiritual herbalist, urban farmer, writer, and educator who has been working to heal women and young people for over 20 years. A graduate of Farm School NYC in 2022, Emi works to educate her community on the importance of farming, gardening, and plant medicine.

From Seed to Table: Honoring the Land with PlantxChange 1:45-3pm

This workshop will provide students with a historical and contemporary overview of indigenous groups in North East America through the exploration of New York City’s landscape. Participants will learn about the significance of the Three Sisters and how we can utilize these values to care for our underserved indigenous families and land. We will pot up live plants and digest the knowledge gained. PlantxChange is a community-rooted organization dedicated to reconnecting people with plants, land, and ancestral knowledge. They will be offering dried tobacco, medicinal herbs, live tropical and native plants, native seed bomb mix, and free educational literature.

Community Care as Resistance Panel Discussion 3:45-5pm

Moderated by FSNYC alum and Program Coordinator / Facilitator Frances Pérez-Rodriguez, our closing panel will center community care as resistance and uplift the ongoing work of revolutionary elders. English to Spanish interpretation will be provided by Babilla Collective. Interpretación de inglés a español por Babilla Collective.

Denise Oliver-Velez A powerhouse political activist, feminist, journalist, community organizer, anthropologist, public scholar, educator, and the former Minister of Economic Development of The Young Lords Party and member of the Black Panther Party, Denise Oliver-Velez is still and will always be radical, rebellious, and militantly Black. You can read Denise’s Black Music Sunday and Caribbean Matters weekly series on dailykos.com.

Sadiki "Bro Shep" Olugbala aka Shepard P McDaniel, began his life long work as a community activist in the early 70s as a member of the "original" Black Panther Party. He continues that work today with Black Liberation Farm, the 1st Congregational Church of Morrisania Black Panther Legacy Youth Center, Prison Lives Matter Coalition, and the BPP Commemoration Committee, facilitating political education and the utilization of Black Culture as an organizing tool for anti-colonialism, social justice, food security, community building, peace, and youth advocacy.

Walter Bosque alongside Mutulu Shakur and other revolutionaries in the early 70s, formed the Acupuncture Collective after researching drug detox treatments and studying acupuncture practices used in China to treat opiate addiction. They developed their own, now widely practiced, treatment called “The People’s Protocol.” Walter continues to participate in free community clinics and programs throughout Puerto Rico and NYC with Salud y Acupuntura Para el Pueblo, New York Harm Reduction Educators, Friends of Brook Park, and Acupuncturists Without Borders. This important work was featured in the 2020 documentary film 'Dope is Death.'

Frances Pérez-Rodriguez was born in Puerto Rico, raised in New York City, and stands in solidarity with the oppressed peoples of the world. Former farm manager of La Finca Del Sur Community Farm in the South Bronx and Food & Land Education Coordinator for Woke Foods, Frances is now a student-turned-Program Coordinator / Facilitator with Farm School NYC. She is deeply inspired by the realities of maintaining a healthy relationship with the planet and with one another through tending to our interpersonal connections and freeing the land. Frances is a daughter, land steward, music head, and a community organizer.

MC + Musical Guests

Dior St. Hillaire is a nationally recognized environmental justice leader and Hip Hop MC who uses the arts to inspire residents to establish a more sustainable relationship with the materials management industry. She is a worker-owner at GreenFeen OrganiX, chair of the Bronx Solid Waste Advisory Board (SWAB), Director of Strategic Partnerships at BK ROT, and an Urban Design Forum Forefront Fellow.

Sunny Cheeba is a FSNYC alum and multidimensional creative weaving her passions of DJing, farming and plant alchemy into her life’s work. Born and raised in the Bronx, she draws inspiration from the rhythms and sounds that make up her Nuyroican upbringing to give you that authentic home grown flavor. She is co-founder of Uptown Vinyl Supreme, a DJ collective preserving the analog roots of music, party and dance culture.

Chispa is a music project led by FSNYC alum Julia Rocha-Nava and their collaborators Sebastián Ángel Romero, lee hooper, Jamila Ravel, Mobéy Lola Irizarry, and Daniela Serna. Chispa’s performances invite us to dance, sing, and heal together through songs that celebrate queer love, friendship, land stewardship, and collective liberation.

Vendor Market 11am-5pm

Amori Herbal, Aunt Sweet’s Kitchen Table Treats, Black Bunny Burrow, Black Mermaid Society LLC, BK Rot, Chispa, Cocina Medicina, Doll Herbalism, Equity Exchange, Farm School NYC, Forgotten Foods, Garden of Geneva, Herban Cura, Iridescent Earth Collective, JenniBeauxArts LLC, Isalina Sanchez, Nadia Rondon, Nay Balloon, OAAARS, PlantxChange

Plus free / pay-what-you-can self serve food and beverages provided by FSNYC alum Chef AL & Tractor Beverage Co!

Healing Space + Childcare 12-5pm

Acupuncture with Jewel & Nabil - The 5-Point Protocol involves the gentle placement of seeds or the insertion of needles into specific points in each ear. Benefits include a supported capacity to process and find relief from stress, anxiety, fear, anger, and grief.

Reiki with Spice & Soul Remedies - The 10-Minute Energy Reset uses soundscapes and aromatic medicine to provide immediate nervous system regulation.

Childcare with Empress & Benya - Come by for arts and crafts activities and fun games for kids!

For questions, email programs@farmschoolnyc.org.

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2026 FSNYC Food Futures Symposium

Community Care as Resistance