Flying Fish Fellowship
The Flying Fish Fellowship at Conscious Homestead is a seasonal, all-immersive Afro-Indigenous, Afro-TransAtlantic-centered farming, herbalism, and homesteading program for BIPOC Vermonters to connect with the land, each other, and our ancestors spanning through space and time. It's a direct extension of the mentorship program that Candace J. Taylor (they/she) facilitated in the years prior.
Each year the season begins in late May with the Open Harvest and blessing of the fields gathering and ends in early October with our End of Harvest celebration, where we party and put the garden beds to rest. Our annual cohorts consist of ten BIPOC fellows (ages 21+), each paid $3,000 and mileage reimbursement, provided local BIPOC-catered food, garden tools, seeds, transplants, and more.
We also collaborate with black and brown land stewards, artists, wellness practitioners, and other ancestrally-informed specialists throughout the state to lead workshops and skillshares during the fellowship. The bulk of the curriculum at the homestead focuses on ethnobotany and growing food, making herbal medicine, chicken care 101, Afro-American/Afro-Diasporan history, land-based arts and crafts, plant identification, foraging, composting, community care shares, ancestral cooking, and more.
This flying fish symbolizes freedom, liberation and collective solutions to challenges faced; these are values we are committed to practicing from our guiding principles so it felt fitting to rename our fellowship after the flying fish.
Each year the season begins in late May with the Open Harvest and blessing of the fields gathering and ends in early October with our End of Harvest celebration, where we party and put the garden beds to rest. Our annual cohorts consist of ten BIPOC fellows (ages 21+), each paid $3,000 and mileage reimbursement, provided local BIPOC-catered food, garden tools, seeds, transplants, and more.
We also collaborate with black and brown land stewards, artists, wellness practitioners, and other ancestrally-informed specialists throughout the state to lead workshops and skillshares during the fellowship. The bulk of the curriculum at the homestead focuses on ethnobotany and growing food, making herbal medicine, chicken care 101, Afro-American/Afro-Diasporan history, land-based arts and crafts, plant identification, foraging, composting, community care shares, ancestral cooking, and more.
This flying fish symbolizes freedom, liberation and collective solutions to challenges faced; these are values we are committed to practicing from our guiding principles so it felt fitting to rename our fellowship after the flying fish.
Candace (fellowship mentor) teaching an ancestral foods cooking class.
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Jaya (fellowship mentor) teaching a class about ancestral plant-based dyeing methods.
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Jabari (fellowship mentor) teaching about ancestral foods/sourdough baking class.
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Farmer James Keys (fellowship mentor & VT's only black bee keeper) teaching about caring for bees to our fellows.
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Fellows gearing up to meet the bees at Farmer James Key's apiary.
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Fellows learning about herbalism and making herbal remedies from plants and botanicals grown on the homestead from Candace (fellowship mentor).
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The Story of Flying Fish Fellowship
Flying Fish Fellowship was born from a partnership developed in 2020 between ShiftMeals, its parent organization, The Skinny Pancake, and Conscious Homestead. The relationship began when Jaya Touma-Shoatz (she/they/he) and Zymora Cleopatra Davinchi (she/her) were working on a ShiftMeals GrowTeam in Marshfield, growing crops for food-insecure Vermonters amid a global pandemic and racial reckoning in the United States.
In response to the state murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, The Skinny Pancake released a public statement expressing solidarity with Black Lives Matter and commitment to the Black community. Therefore, Jaya and Zymora decided to challenge those words and make them a reality by submitting a proposal. They demanded that each of the Black laborers across their statewide GrowTeams be paid a higher wage due to the legacy of forced land-based slave labor. Also, they wanted Skinny Pancake to hire Black facilitators to educate the GrowTeam members about the contribution of Black people to our modern-day foodways.
As a result, ShiftMeals hired Zymora and Jaya, and together with Jean Myung Hamilton (she/her) from Skinny Pancake, they forged the BIPOC Food Sovereignty Program. Jaya focused on internal affairs and JEDI training for Skinny Pancake, while Zymora focused on community outreach, Vermont Everyone Eats, and developing the BIPOC GrowTeam fellowship. Zymora aspired to create a BIPOC affinity space hosted on BIPOC-owned land that was proudly Afrocentric, rooted in ancestral reverence, and paid Vermonters of color to be with and learn from one another and the land. Due to their aligned philosophy, Zymora reached out to Conscious Homestead and together they created the BIPOC GrowTeam Fellowship.
Since then, many things have evolved. The fellowship is now fully-sponsored and housed by Conscious Homestead. Zymora transitioned to being Conscious Homestead's first employee in her role as Program Manager/Assistant Director. Jean, now serves as Conscious Homestead's Financial Steward.
In response to the state murders of Breonna Taylor and George Floyd, The Skinny Pancake released a public statement expressing solidarity with Black Lives Matter and commitment to the Black community. Therefore, Jaya and Zymora decided to challenge those words and make them a reality by submitting a proposal. They demanded that each of the Black laborers across their statewide GrowTeams be paid a higher wage due to the legacy of forced land-based slave labor. Also, they wanted Skinny Pancake to hire Black facilitators to educate the GrowTeam members about the contribution of Black people to our modern-day foodways.
As a result, ShiftMeals hired Zymora and Jaya, and together with Jean Myung Hamilton (she/her) from Skinny Pancake, they forged the BIPOC Food Sovereignty Program. Jaya focused on internal affairs and JEDI training for Skinny Pancake, while Zymora focused on community outreach, Vermont Everyone Eats, and developing the BIPOC GrowTeam fellowship. Zymora aspired to create a BIPOC affinity space hosted on BIPOC-owned land that was proudly Afrocentric, rooted in ancestral reverence, and paid Vermonters of color to be with and learn from one another and the land. Due to their aligned philosophy, Zymora reached out to Conscious Homestead and together they created the BIPOC GrowTeam Fellowship.
Since then, many things have evolved. The fellowship is now fully-sponsored and housed by Conscious Homestead. Zymora transitioned to being Conscious Homestead's first employee in her role as Program Manager/Assistant Director. Jean, now serves as Conscious Homestead's Financial Steward.
