Unbroken: Indigenous Peoples Today

Alfred Melbourne, Lakota Native and Founder of Three Sisters Gardens in Broderick, CA

Three Sisters Gardens is a non-profit community-supported farm located in Broderick, CA led by Lakota Native, Alfred Melbourne. After living a difficult past life and being incarcerated at a young age, Alfred knows of the situations that vulnerable youths can face and uses the program as a way to keep them off the streets and teach useful skills. He also provides his team with hourly pay and encourages them to give away their crops to local elders and low income community members.

"This garden is Indigenous led because as history was in the beginning it will be in the end. We Natives will continue to show the way because our mentality is that we’re protectors and caretakers of this land. It’s our responsibility and I’m just trying to live up to that."

"It feels great to be out here with these young folks and showing them something good because when I was out here at their age, exactly at their age, they were giving me a pistol and a knife, winding me up and setting me off. It wasn’t if, it was when you were going to prison, and we were told everything to say from day one. ‘Put your chin up and chest out. Be a man.’ And I thought that’s what I was supposed to be doing, but those were words from the wrong role models. Those were the wrong rights of passages."

"Here [at Three Sisters Gardens] we’re creating new rights of passages and giving these youngsters a connection to the land. We give these guys a way to take care of themselves and take this good food home to their families. We give them something that’s really meaningful that they can hold on to. We’re about to plant 1,000 corn seeds in the ground and that’s our goal today."

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