Officially initiating ourselves onto this tiny but abundant plot of Occaneechi land in March 2018, our garden began as a refuge and already has provided purpose. Some of the first plants we cared for came to us from a collective member who was experiencing displacement as a direct result of our city’s rapid gentrification process and needed a safe haven for their plants while they weathered the whirlwind of their move.

Since launching, Hypha has been steadily building an intergenerational, land-based learning space. This has looked like consistent collective workdays, summer youth camp, community work days, skillshares, harvesting and creating medicine to be sent to asylum seekers at the U.S. – Mexico “border,” and engaging neighbors in conversation about land use in a heavily gentrifying neighborhood. 

We are brought together by syncretism and magnetism driven by lived experience and shared need, not just ideology or theory. We deeply understand the root causes of injustice and move from a place of humility and gratitude in our stewardship with the land. The medicine of this land project is to dismantle the historical structures that have intentionally prevented black and brown folks from accessing land, and intentionally separating queer and trans folks from their innate connection with nature.