Instructors

Cherokee Foods

Amy Walker

Amy Walker is a member of the Deer Clan, is a great grandmother, and is 78 years old. Her parents, one Cherokee and one South Dakota Sioux, were both herbalists. She grew up eating out of the Appalachian forests; a wildcrafter and a farmer, she focuses her farming on traditional Cherokee food preferences, mostly growing traditional medicine, corn, beans, and squash. She is a retired social worker, and an indigenous traditionalist. Amy is a pipe carrier and a Sundancer in South Dakota.

Farm Business

Clarenda “Farmer Cee” Stanley is a fifth-generation farmer, originally from Anne Manie, Alabama. Although she  did not set out in life to follow on her family’s agrarian path, in 2017, she found herself returning to her roots as the CEO of Green Heffa Farms (GHF), a medicinal plant and hemp farm in Liberty, NC. As one of the first black women to be licensed in North Carolina, she was selected as the 2019 Featured Farmer for Hemp History Week, the nation’s largest grassroots campaign for the federal legalization of industrial hemp. She has been featured in more than 200 national and international publications, including April’s Oprah O Magazine, and is a frequent  speaker at national conferences.

Cee earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Marketing from the University of Alabama in Huntsville and a Master’s Degree in Education from Troy University. She was selected by her peers as the 2016 Fundraiser of the Year for the Triangle Chapter of the Association for Fundraising Professionals, and in 2017 she received the C-Suite Award for Nonprofit Leadership. In addition, Cee has earned the coveted designation of Certified Fund Raising Executive (CFRE). 

Cherokee Foods

Mary Crowe was born and raised in Cherokee, NC, and is a member of the Eastern Band of the Cherokee. Mary was raised in social work with social worker parents, and eventually helped author the Indian Child Welfare Act. In 1993, she began working with the Indigenous Environmental Network (IEN) and founded the Eastern Cherokee Defense League, an economic, social and environmental organization for the Qualla boundary in 1994. Through IEN, Mary works on a national level with Grassroots Global Justice Alliance, the Climate Justice Alliance, and It Takes Roots. She is on the elders advisory council for Sacred Way Horse Sanctuary in Alabama, serves on the NC Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women Chapter, and is on the review Committee for the Native American Women’s Health Organization Resource Center. She is a former Resident Counselor for the Burgess Emergency Shelter and the Cherokee Children’s Home, Cherokee Boys Club Inc. and a former Case Manager with the Phoenix House Day Therapy Program with the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians. In between her activism work, she’s a breast cancer survivor, a widow, and has raised three kids. Her children follow in her footsteps as climate and community activists.

Herbal Tonics

Patricia Kyritsi Howell, RH (AHG), clinical herbalist, teacher, and author, has been tinkering with seasonal tonics for thirty years. Her use of medicinal herbs and healing foods is grounded in her herbal practice, the study of the seasonal wisdom of Traditional Chinese Medicine, and her Greek heritage. Patricia is the author of Medicinal Plants of the Southern Appalachians and director of the BotanoLogos School of Herbal Studies, located in the mountains of northeast Georgia. She is Herbalist in Residence at the Foxfire Museum and Heritage Center and serves as Admissions Coordinator for the American Herbalists Guild. Back when people could safely fly on planes, she also hosted herb and culinary tours to the Greek island of Crete each Spring. 

Cherokee Foods

Tyson Sampson is a two-hearted and two-spirited individual whom has descended from the local indigenous matriarchy called the ᎠᏂᎩᎶᎯ (A-ni-gi-lo-hi). Their home is referred to as The Beautiful Painted Earth. This family is based here in their aboriginal territory most commonly known as the Great Smoky Mountainsides. Tyson has a background in the healing arts and communications. They (he/she) have been of service to connective circles/family for 19+ years. In multi-faceted contributions, they have worked on everything from documenting endangered language,  holding mindful awareness/presence, to sharing wild food practices and cultural sensibilities about Cherokee cuisine. He has contributed to efforts for residents of the Qualla Indian Boundary to have more intimate and legally protective relationships to plants/wild foods in this indigenous bio-region. Currently, Tyson is cultivating an apothecary for ethnobotanical accessibility, called Bigwitch Botanicals. He is also developing a broader collective to support traditional ecological knowledge for his fellow tribesfolk, called the Oconaluftee Wisdom Initiative.