The Koasek Abenaki is an autonomous band of Abenaki families of what is now called the Western Abenaki Tribes, which have been recognized by the State of Vermont. We are the native inhabitants of central and northwest New Hampshire and northeast and central Vermont. We are seeking to achieve food sovereignty and self-sufficiency by determining our own food choices, teaching our citizens of all ages how to organically grow our traditional foods from seed to harvest, cook and preserve them, and recognize the importance of food as medicine. For more than 12 years we have been working to accomplish this through our community garden, the Abenaki Tribal Garden. We offer classes there for our children and their parents to teach them how to plant, grow, and preserve organic vegetables, especially traditional varieties. The Abenaki are the highest-risk group in Vermont for many chronic diseases. Learning to control our own diets and choose nutritious traditional foods is so important for our citizens to improve our health for life! We are still in the process of identifying a much larger piece of tillable land that the tribe can acquire where we can expand the crops we grow to be able to develop commercial products that will provide our tribe with much-needed economic stability. For the time being, we are cultivating a piece of land owned by one of our co-chiefs in Braintree, Vermont where our Abenaki Tribal Garden resides.