August, 2021

• St. Mark Giving Garden Gate Gathering - Duluth - Giving Garden Newsletter

• The new gate provides access to food, community, and improved health.  

July 2021

• Transformation Grant awarded to Echoes of Peace for Planting Connections, Planting Hope Program, funded by the Barnum Fund, the Dr. & Mrs. Bernhard Boecker Charitable Fund, the Community Opportunity Fund, the Ojard Family Fund, and the Carolyn Joy Seitz Family Fund of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation.

• Regina Laroche has been named as Echoes of Peace (EOP) Co-Artistic Director, focusing on the new program, Planting Connections, Planting Hope.

• Having collaborated with EOP for more than a decade, Regina has used the past four years to focus on researching, designing and launching an arts and gardening program to empower children, youth, families and women of color. The success of this arts, garden and food justice endeavor has formed the basis for the Planting Connections, Planting Hope program and Regina’s Co-Director position.

• Click here to learn more about Echoes of Peace, and Planting Connections, Planting Hope!

June, 2021

• The St. Mark Giving Garden Begins:  Giveaway Event & Planting

• Hundreds of community-grown seedlings are provided for give away and planting in the Giving Garden and into bucket gardens for households.

May, 2021

• St. Mark Giving Garden SURJ (Show Up for Racial Justice) anti-racism training for Giving Garden team members, allies, volunteers, and community.

April, 2021

• Volunteers begin preparation of St. Mark AME Giving Garden soil at Bertha’s Garden in the Duluth Hillside Neighborhood (Duluth, MN).

• The St. Mark Giving Garden & Food Access Project is an exciting health, food justice, community connection, racial equity, empowerment garden project in the Duluth Hillside Neighborhood.

March, 2021

• We gratefully received a Minnesota State Arts Board grant awarded to Echoes of Peace for Regina’s Planting Connections, Planting Hope work.

• Seeds started indoors
  
  

February 26-28, 2021

• Umoja MN Family Camp - Evolve Services
  
  

January, 2021

• Startup of To Repair Our Lives and Dancing Our Lives 2021 offerings

• Regina is deeply grateful to the community of people who agreed to accompany her on a year of explorations of personal and communal repair in a world reeling from racial violence, COVID-19, inequities, and climate disruption

2020/2021 Diaspora Programming is supported by generous contributions.

• Echoes of Peace Artist Fellowship

• The Wirtenan Family Fund of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation

• The COVID-19 Northwest Wisconsin Response Fund of the Duluth Superior Area Community Foundation

Thank you! Your generosity makes our creative, empowering and healing connections between communities, individuals, food, and land possible.

New Family Offerings Coming Soon!

Planting Connection - Virtual creative garden and story experiences for families build connections to each other, health, food, Africana cultural traditions and identity.

To receive information as this is developed, click here.