“It’s not just the elders you’re feeding, it’s their grandkids.”

Hi Neighbor, today we’re bringing you a story about Isaiah Skenadore, his farm, and how he brought nutritious, culturally relevant food to Tribal elders on the Oneida reservation by leveraging American Rescue Plan Act Funding and working in partnership with the Wisconsin Farmers Union. Read more below, and don’t forget to help us share his story, written by one of our fantastic story producers Sara Millhouse. Thank you for being here! 

As a kid, Isaiah Skenandore remembers going with his grandmother Gwenevere Skenandore to pick up government commodities: processed cheese, canned meat, canned vegetables, white flour. “It's really a lot of stuff that wasn't necessarily good for you, and it kind of led to a lot of the health epidemics we have in the Native communities,” Skenandore said.

Before Gwenevere passed away in November 2021, Isaiah got to bring his grandmother boxes filled with grass-fed beef and pasture-raised chickens from his own farm on the Oneida reservation. “For her to be able to have some of them boxes, and see food that her grandchild grew in them, it was a pretty proud moment,” Skenandore shared with us.

For elders on the Oneida reservation and other Tribal nations across Wisconsin, nutritious, culturally relevant food is a health necessity. “Now, we're really focusing on getting high-quality food into these elder homes,” Skenandore said.

Isaiah’s Skenandore Farm LLC sells meat wholesale and direct to consumers through a small on-farm store adjoining the equestrian business he owns with his wife Kelsey. Through the Tribal Elder Food Box Program, Isaiah Skenandore now shares the high-quality meat raised on his farm with elders in his Oneida community and elder Tribal members throughout Wisconsin.

Skenandore produces this food under contract for the Great Lakes Intertribal Food Coalition and the Wisconsin Local Food Purchase Assistance (WI LFPA) program. WI LFPA is a partnership that includes the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade, and Consumer Protection, Marbleseed, the Wisconsin Food Hub Cooperative, and Wisconsin Farmers Union. The program procures food from local farmers and distributes that food in underserved communities through community partners.

WI LFPA is funded by the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA), passed by Congress and signed into law by President Biden in 2021 to aid in the country’s economic recovery.

“As a producer, you have some input on where it could go,” Skenandore said. He helped direct the beef and chicken from his farm to the local pantry in Oneida and the elder food boxes distributed throughout Wisconsin’s 11 Tribal nations. 

Boxes might include whitefish, bison, wild rice, white corn, and native fruits and vegetables. “It's not just the elders you're feeding,” Skenandore said. “It's their grandkids and the people they have over. It's really special.” 

“This year will be the first year, with my beef I'll be able to make a full shipment with 2,000 pounds of beef,” he said. Each of the 2,000 Tribal Elder Food Boxes sent throughout Wisconsin will have a pound of Skenandore’s beef.

His farm has grown quickly since his first two “COVID heifers” in 2020, and his contracts to provide food for distribution to elder homes have helped him grow. His goal is to build the business so that he doesn’t have to work an off-farm job. “I just want to farm full-time,” Skenandore said.

Skenandores is a first-generation farmer and a “Youtube farmer,” he jokes, but both his grandfathers farmed, as did previous generations. His grandmother Gwenevere’s family lived near where he farms today. “She actually grew up on the same block I farm at, so I used to always tell her that I couldn't get the original farm back, but I got as close as I could,” Skenandore recalls.

By producing for the Tribal Elder Food Box Program, Skenandore is growing his farming operation, but he’s also providing nutritious, culturally relevant food to members of his community. “To be a Tribal producer, producing food on the reservation that’s coming full circle and right back into the community, is something we're very proud of,” he said