Springfield Community Gardens dedicated a new urban farm Tuesday morning. They had help from the Osage Nation. Osage congressman John Maker conducted a ceremony to mark the occasion and bless the land, with a prayer and cedar smoke.
Maker explained, “When all the other trees were dormant the cedar tree stayed green year-round, so they used that as a symbol of purification, of blessing like we did today, and to signify everlasting life.”
Community Gardens’ Executive Director Mailee Auterson said the special ceremony is a result of ongoing and long-term partnerships between the Gardens and the American Indian Center in Springfield, and an effort to honor the land and its history as they rededicate its purpose.
The new plot itself is also a product of the Gardens’ networking and dedicated mission. They will be leasing nearly 3 acres from St. John’s Chapel United Church of Christ on Fremont in Springfield. Gary Tebbenkamp, a parishioner and garden lead at St. John’s knew the Gardens needed a space, and knew the land at St. John’s was going unused. He made the connection.
It builds on smaller scale community gardening that has been done at St. John’s since 2010, and a tradition of gardening on the church’s ground that they say goes back to the chapel’s first pastor Rev. Robert Dohm, and before the church bought the property it was farmland.
Now the Community Gardens organization will be building hoop houses and a green house on the property and working the land with two full-time farmers. Auterson says things should be planted by this fall and the food they grow will go back to feeding the community.
John Maker praised the project and the gardens and said that feeding one another is the most essential thing we can do.
“My great-grandfather, who was like a priest of the tribe, he said whenever you can feed your people and pray for your people you’ve done all you can. There’s not anything more you can do then that.”
Read more about the Native American history of the Ozarks from KSMU and the National Park Service. Read more about the Osage on the Osage Nation website.