The Fields at Rootsprings

Where can community go for healing? 

For years, many BIPOC folks have named the urgent need for healing spaces that “look like us, talk like us, and act like us.” After the murder of George Floyd, when Minneapolis became the epicenter of the global uprising, this need reached a crisis point. Organizers were running on fumes, taking little to no time to retreat, rest, and rejuvenate. When an opportunity emerged to steward 36-acres of biodiverse agricultural land in unceded traditional territory of the Dakota people (Annandale, MN; about 75-minutes outside of the Twin Cities), six BIPOC lesbian artist-organizers responded.

The Fields at Rootsprings is a transformative new model for community healing and Black land stewardship in Minnesota. It is a hybrid cooperative-nonprofit partnership with the mission to provide land-based programs for the healing and retreat of BIPOC (centering LGBTQ+) artists, activists, healers and communities in Minnesota.

Our programming aligns with four different categories: body, land, stillness and water. Community experiences healing through the body through movement and arts-based workshops and bodywork; healing through the land by tending gardens, walking the labyrinth and woods, harvesting food; healing through stillness in the meditation garden, resting in hermitages, breathing in fresh air; and healing through the water by kayaking, swimming, fishing, reflecting in and by the lake.

Funds raised will go to purchase and restore the land and to kickstart the operations and programming of the nonprofit. Please give all that you can!

Watch this video to get a feel for the land: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XElqffGzTvc