Our Capital Campaign
Phase II: Building a hub for ancestral knowledge
What the community has accomplished
In 2022, the Anahuac Farm acquired 60 acres of organic farmland in Turner, OR. For the first time in nearly 50 years of Oregon’s Farmworker Movement, our communities have been able to return to the land with our ancestral knowledge. More than 1,500 youth and families from our Indigenous communities, many farmworkers, have been able to come and connect in a safe, culturally space with access to their traditional crops, foods, cultural arts, wellness initiatives, and languages. While this transition has felt like a huge leap, it is one of many steps on our journey.
The Anahuac team, with little infrastructure, has primarily operated from under canopy tents and a renovated storage space in an established barn. While this was appropriate and necessary given our recent purchase of the farm, we continue our long-term effort to make Anahuac Farm a sustainable space for many generations to come.
Traditional Kitchen Coming 2025
Rendering of future community center, courtesy of BRIC Architecture (2023)
Listen to Capaces Leadership Institute's Executive Director Jaime Arredondo share on how our Phase II fundraising efforts will make the Anahuac Farm a longstanding space for many generations to come!
Video Credit: Oregon Español
What’s next
To be able to continue offering our traditional organic agriculture production and educational programming on the Anahuac Farm, Capaces Leadership Institute in collaboration with BRIC Architecture plans to build a new building that houses a kitchen facility, cold storage, wash and pack areas, produce and product display area, and meeting space with an office and restrooms. The building will be designed with Zapotec architectural inspiration and constructed as a green building with solar panels and energy efficiency. This building will allow us to process our traditional crops throughout the year, offer fresh and processed farm products to our community, an conduct spring, fall and winter educational activities to teach our community about traditional agricultural production, traditional and conventional cooking, herbalism, and food preparation along with other similar activities using the farm’s products.
Rendering of future traditional kitchen, courtesy of BRIC Architecture (2025)
Honoring ancestral knowledge and today
Our intention is to merge green technology with ancestral knowledge in multiple ways through our infrastructure and equipment. Agriculture and commercial kitchen equipment, such as an electric tractor and nixtamal processing equipment, will ensure our operations can be carried out with our long-term vision of growing milpa (corn, squash and beans) in large quantities to process organic nixtamal masa, beans and seeds to redistribute back into our Indigenous communities. Spiritual health and resiliency are at the core of Anahuac. We have brought temazcal, known as a sweat lodge to Turtle Mountain communities, to the farm, continuing our ceremonies to be in good relationship with each other and tonantzin, Mother Earth.
Anahuac Strategy
The Anahuac Farm offers a hub in the Willamette Valley for our Indigenous communities and Oregon’s Farmworker Movement to return to our center, connect with Mother Earth, and reawaken our ancestral power.
We recognize the urgency to collectively preserve, revitalize and promote our languages, ancestral knowledge and practices, and native seeds to sustain life for many generations to come.
We hear the call of our ancestors.
Capaces Leadership Institute and Anahuac team appreciates the generous support of community partners, helping make this dream possible for our Indigenous communities.
Oregon Food Bank
Ford Family Foundation
Lora L. and Martin N. Kelley Family Foundation
Roundhouse Foundation
Meyer Memorial Trust
Oregon Community Foundation
Collins Foundation
2x Direct Congressional Spending Awards (USDA & HUD)
Kalliopeia Foundation
Business Oregon Economic Equity Investment Program
Schmidt Foundation
Maps Community Foundation