Our Vision: A Thriving Food Hub on the Pine Ridge Reservation.
Pine Ridge is home to countless innovative farmers and producers, chefs, and educators who are committed to re-indigenizing our food system and empowering community members. Makoce’s Food Hub will provide these leaders with a cutting-edge facility and targeted resources to gather, grow, and distribute their products to communities across the reservation and beyond. As the beating heart of Pine Ridge’s regenerative food system, the Food Hub will ensure that nourishing, locally-produced foods are accessible to all–to help support a healthy, thriving, deeply-connected community.
After nearly three years of in-depth research and planning in close collaboration with community members, Makoce released its Food Hub Master Plan, including these graphic renderings of the future facility.
“Our people are literally sick from the dominant culture's foods, from diabetes and heart disease to cancer. Returning to our Indigenous foods isn’t taking a step backwards in time. It’s about renewing and reclaiming who we are as Indigenous people.”
- Chef Kim Tilsen Braveheart, Food Hub Community Advisor
Makoce’s Food Hub: FAQs
What purpose will the
Food Hub serve?
Makoce’s Food Hub will serve as the central connection point between local producers and food entrepreneurs–including farmers, ranchers, chefs, caterers, and more–and the broader Pine Ridge community.
Through the Hub, producers will be able to access resources to distribute their goods more effectively, helping to build their businesses and reach new markets, like local schools and hospitals. This will ensure more community members can access nourishing, locally produced foods that support better health and wellbeing.
Where is the Food Hub, and what will it look like?
The Food Hub’s will sit on 24-acres in Porcupine, SD. The master plan for the Hub includes structures that will house a commercial kitchen, coffee shop, deli, and meeting, coworking, and learning spaces, as well as sufficient food storage for locally farmed produce and meats.
Outside the campus will include walking trails, gardens, and other spaces to encourage reconnecting with the natural world. The design team is utilizing the most sustainable, energy-efficient practices to care for the land while creating unique spaces to support operations, spark innovation, and celebrate in a shared space.
How were plans for the Food Hub developed?
To ensure that the Hub reflects the community’s collective vision for a local food system, Makoce created a Community Advisory Committee, including cultural food leaders, business leaders, youth, educators, and advocates, to help guide the development of the Hub from start to finish. Together the Committee outlined their vision for a local food system that is grounded in Lakota culture and that can support the health and wellbeing of community members.
Drawing on the community’s vision, Makoce then partnered with a group of planners, architects, and food hub engineers to design the initial blueprints and schematics for the Hub.
What are the next steps, and when will the Food Hub open?
Makoce is working with Hoxie Collective and Substance Architecture on the next steps of the Food Hub. The next steps of the design process include the Schematic Design and Design Development. We will be finalizing the Schematic Design phase which consists of a site plan, floor plan, sections, building elevation, and other illustrative materials such as computer images, rendering, or models. During the Design phase, we will advance the design significantly based on the floor plan and exterior concept approved in the previous phase. By the end of this phase, the building exterior will be more fully designed, the interior layout completed, dimensions of all spaces finalized, and most materials selected.
The Food Hub completion timeline is approximately 3 years.
“Through the creation of this Food Hub, I hope our community will start to recognize their own capability to grow and harvest nourishing food–and that being connected back to the land, and to our own traditional foods, can restore our balance and support us physically, mentally and emotionally. I think we’re really on the way to that happening.”
-Randilynn Boucher, Educator, Food Hub Community Advisory
Get Involved!
We’d love to hear your thoughts on the Food Hub! If you’d like to share any feedback or ideas, or are interested in getting involved, please email us!