Help Danielle buy land for Black healing community

Hi there! My name is Danielle (she/her) and I am purchasing a 5-acre property in my hometown of Little Rock, Arkansas in the Granite Mountain area. I was planning to purchase with a mortgage, but as the property is undeveloped my only option is to use an "undeveloped land-loan" which requires paying 25% down. I've got more than half of the down payment saved up but need help from community for the rest.

This land will be used to create Sankofa Village, an intentional community centered around Black healing, liberation and regeneration. I plan to transition the land into a land trust to combat the potential for gentrification. The land will eventually include tiny homes, a small market garden, workshop and community spaces with some land set aside for trails through the beautiful oak forest. 

Your support will mean removing a financial barrier towards purchasing land that many Black folks like me have due to generational racism and predatory land practices. This support will create the foundation for a regenerative and interdependent Black community. The small homes and land trust structure will help make home-ownership more accessible for members.  The market garden, native plantings, and built communal spaces will provide various opportunities for healing. I also see these spaces as fertile soil for sustainable and human-centered business incubation.

I hope that over time the benefits of this community will extend into the broader Central Arkansas region with the long-term vision of hosting workshops to share our learnings and skills more broadly. 

I know that creative, reciprocal, and sustainable practices are nothing new for Black folks, nor any community that has had to live in-rhythm with the land and rely on each other. As Audre Lorde says "There are no new ideas. There are only new ways of making them felt."

I hope to make these values felt in this new way, and that you will be part of helping this vision come to life. 

-Danielle

sankofavillagearkansas.com 
Instagram @SankofaVillageArkansas 

More about me: I am a sustainability educator, yoga teacher, plant lover and compassionate facilitator. I grew up in Little Rock, AR graduating from Wilbur D. Mills University Studies High School in 2010. I attended Rhodes College in Memphis, TN graduating with a Bachelor's of Arts in Environmental Studies and Sociology in 2014. Internships and fellowships in Memphis solidified my direction towards education, sustainability, and equity. Following graduation, I moved to Portland, OR to enroll in a unique graduate program and learn from the robust sustainability education community in Oregon. In 2018 I earned a M.S. in Educational Leadership & Policy with a specialization in Leadership for Sustainability Education as well as a certificate in Sustainable Food Systems from Portland State University. My thesis paper was titled Soil to Soul: Phenomenological inquiry into Pan-African earth-connection. I received 300 hours of Yoga Teacher Training from The Bhakti Yoga Movement Center in 2019. And in 2017 I completed the six-month-long 2042 Emerging Leadership program from the Center for Diversity and the Environment. 

I have served on advisory committees, grant committees and contracted with various government and community-based organizations in Oregon - growing my knowledge of strategies for program design, collaboration, leadership and project management. I love working with people and with land, and find nothing more fulfilling than helping a human or non-human friend grow. I am excited to be part of the effort towards "the more beautiful world our hearts know is possible" (Charles Eisenstein, 2013).