You Are On Native Land
Posted: Wed Jul 09, 2025 4:55 am
That’s part of why the organization has focused its recent strategic growth on capital expansion—including the purchase of a three-story, 21,000-square-foot facility in South Minneapolis that will beef up the capacity of its Indigenous Food Lab to be a culturally specific food producer for the region. The effect can be a sort of virtuous circle: “You’re moving money to Indigenous producers, for food that gets created by an Indigenous workforce, which then goes to the Indigenous [and other] communities that need it the most,” Sherman describes.
A neon sign declaring, “YOU ARE ON NATIVE LAND” hangs on a wall at the Owamni restaurant.
A grant from the Mellon Foundation is helping NATIFS take this holistic approach—that includes food education, production, and distribution—to sites outside of Minneapolis, including Bozeman, Montana, where the organization is partnering with organizations like the local food pantry. Expanding operations to additional locations is important not just because it could reach more people, but also because there is such diversity (of ingredients and preparation methods) across North American regions. If successful, Sherman sees a future in which an expanding set of regional food systems allows communities to decolonize their diets in ways that follow c level contact list local traditions and respond to local needs—an option that hasn’t existed in North America for centuries.
It’s a bold agenda for NATIFS to be balancing, and a lot of work is still on the table, but when asked about the possible stress of the restaurant operations, building acquisition, and organizational expansion swirling together, Sherman emphasizes the urgency of the opportunity at hand. He says, “If we start to learn from diverse Indigenous communities … that have deep connections to our land, there is a future for our humanity.”
North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems
North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems was awarded $150,000 in June 2022 through the Higher Learning grantmaking area and $3,100,000 in May 2024 through the Arts and Culture, Higher Learning, Humanities in Place, and Public Knowledge grantmaking areas.
A neon sign declaring, “YOU ARE ON NATIVE LAND” hangs on a wall at the Owamni restaurant.
A grant from the Mellon Foundation is helping NATIFS take this holistic approach—that includes food education, production, and distribution—to sites outside of Minneapolis, including Bozeman, Montana, where the organization is partnering with organizations like the local food pantry. Expanding operations to additional locations is important not just because it could reach more people, but also because there is such diversity (of ingredients and preparation methods) across North American regions. If successful, Sherman sees a future in which an expanding set of regional food systems allows communities to decolonize their diets in ways that follow c level contact list local traditions and respond to local needs—an option that hasn’t existed in North America for centuries.
It’s a bold agenda for NATIFS to be balancing, and a lot of work is still on the table, but when asked about the possible stress of the restaurant operations, building acquisition, and organizational expansion swirling together, Sherman emphasizes the urgency of the opportunity at hand. He says, “If we start to learn from diverse Indigenous communities … that have deep connections to our land, there is a future for our humanity.”
North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems
North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems was awarded $150,000 in June 2022 through the Higher Learning grantmaking area and $3,100,000 in May 2024 through the Arts and Culture, Higher Learning, Humanities in Place, and Public Knowledge grantmaking areas.