Building a Legacy

Keri describes where the idea for Bear Root Resource Center came from a dream, "The resource center dream was inspired to bring the Children's book to life, "The Great Shift," the story is based on a poem I wrote 4 years ago and I am excited to share that it will be published soon!  This realization came to me after a vivid dream that I had the night after I met Matika Wilbur.  When I woke up from the dream, I knew the next steps I needed to take.  This project is an accumulation of my life work and my passion to fulfill I hope to fulfill in my lifetime.  When I shared this vision with a few trusted people within my inner Circle, and it became clear who to collaborate with.  I am really thankful for the early contributions that my dear friend and visionary spiritual leader, Bency Joseph, shared  the cultural and History of Ayiti (Haiti).  This helped provide a worldview perspective by incorporating the African and Caribbean Diaspora to expand our programs.   The dream is a seed that is being planted in the hearts of our local and global      We look forward to connecting with you soon!"

Our Leadership Team is here to listen, immerse and engage within our community, building partnerships with stakeholders, donors, and advocate for our community needs and connect resources to empower individuals to thrive with our innovative programs that will be funded through our comprehensive fundraising strategy. We are working with Industry leaders to formally establish our Non-profit and to take our organization to the next level. We are creating our Legal Team for regulatory compliance, our Financial Team to oversee our finances so that we have strong financial health, and sufficient operating reserves for our programs, as well as to ensure fiscal compliance. We are actively interviewing to establish our board and cultural advisory team to guide us to fulfill our organization mission, values and purpose in perpetuity, with a legacy, to live beyond our lives and for the survival of our future 7 generations. We have plans to grow our team and begin next steps to secure our 1st physical location. Our Leadership team has developed a short and long-term strategy to implement our programs, and advance our Bear Root Resource Center mission and vision, while we adapt to evolving local and global changing circumstances. 

I remember learning about Matika Wilbur during a time when I was taking classes at Napa Valley College.  I remember my Professor had a writing prompt to inform others about something unique and challenging about our culture.  At that time there was a lot going on with trying to remove Native mascots from local High Schools and so I decided to do a research paper on this topic.  I found a T.E.D. Talk with Matika describing the negative impact that stereotypes and how this contributes to a lot of the challenges we face today.  At that time, there still was not a lot of positive or accurate visibility about Indigenous people and I really appreciated what she shared.  Over the years, I continued to follow what she was doing in our community and how she had an interest in interviewing, as well as photographing many Indigenous people all over Turtle Island to help change the narrative about our people and inspire positive visibility.  This work meant a lot to me, and thought about many of the conversations that I have had with my Grams, my children and others in community about our experiences.  After 10 years, Matika completed her project 562 and she published a book that she was beginning to tour throughout the Pacific West.  I found a way to travel to Santa Monica and attend a speaking event and later meet her to sign the book I purchased.  It was an incredible evening that warmed my heart and I was thankful for the experience.  When I returned to my hotel room later that night and opened the page to see the signature, I did not realize what she had wrote when I was talking with her.  I had written my name on a post-it and thought that would be it and include her signature.  

However, what she wrote was something much more meaningful, "Always remember that you are medicine."  

Wow, this really woke up something inside me that I had not thought about in many years.  This reminded me of my childhood dream of wanting to be a Doctor.  I also thought about how amazing it could have been if my Grams was still alive and how she would feel to see what Matika was able to accomplish.  I went to sleep with a dizzy sense of wonder and excitement.  The next day when I woke up, I decided to take my time driving home and visit the beach along the way.  I did not arrive until a little before 12 midnight and went to sleep feeling really tired.  I had the most vivid dream that night about my entire life and it showed me each person I met along the way was a piece to the puzzle of what my true life purpose is.  I woke up as if I had slept the whole night, but I had only slept about 3 hours.  I started to write down everything that I saw in my dream.  The slogan for Bear Root Resource Center is inspired by this event and a special thanks goes to Matika and her Mom for what they shared that night.