“I learned that what you give comes back to you many fold,” says Peggy White Wellknown Buffalo, founder of the Center Pole organization. “I grew up poor with nothing, but I have always shared whatever I had, and it has always come back to me in many unexpected ways.” The Center Pole, a 501(c)(3) Native nonprofit organization, characterizes this sentiment. Peggy grew up in Garryowen, Montana as a member of the Crow Tribe along with her eight siblings. Influenced by the hardships she faced while growing up on the Crow Indian Reservation, Peggy founded the Center Pole in 1999. The organization strives to strengthen the wellbeing of the Crow Community, providing them with the means necessary to flourish in today’s society while embracing their own values and traditions.
Peggy conveys to me how in the 1800’s, “when [the Crow people] were placed on reservations, [the United States Government] gave each Crow member land to live on.” Peggy’s great-grandmother, Ha Eh Gush Wellknown Buffalo, was thus allotted a piece of land. When she passed, Peggy inherited a portion of her great-grandmother’s land and decided to found the Center Pole on it. Peggy explains how, “food has always been the way to control our votes, our power, our wellbeing,” but the Center Pole aims to curtail this.
In Crow culture, the Center Pole “gives strength and guidance and it’s where you go for help. It connects you to heaven, to a bada di a, the Creator” tells Peggy. Today, the Center Pole offers a variety of programs and services to the Crow Community that aim to strengthen knowledge and awareness and promote positive systemic change in Native communities. Currently, the Center Pole transports and distributes around 120,000 pounds of food to community members each month.
By selflessly using her piece of inherited land to positively impact the lives of others, Peggy epitomizes an altruistic, giving persona—utilizing the land not for herself, but for those in need. She states that sharing and giving what you have, “is an indigenous way that works,” it always comes back to you. “It is like trusting your universe and the Creator completely.”
As such, just last week, a man stopped by the Center Pole and handed Peggy an envelope with $4,000 in cash to help her continue with her work. The man appeared “just out of the blue” she told me. The man had been researching Peggy and the organization and felt inspired to contribute toward furthering the Center Pole’s mission. Peggy provides the Universe with her energy and resources, and the Universe and people around her return to her with the same. In addition to moments like this, Peggy says she focuses on “the happiness and positive change in [her] community,” which motivates her to continue her impactful work every day.
On July 17th, The Farmlink Project helped connect 40,000 pounds of potatoes from Strebin Farms in Troutdale, Oregon to the Center Pole in Garryowen, Montana.
These changes are great. But how’s it all going to be funded?
During the comment process, Farmlink, as well as other food rescue organizations and coalitions, raised critical questions about how the strategy would be funded and, as a result, which measures are feasible. In particular, we hoped for more clarity beyond the draft’s statement that the USDA would use American Rescue Plan Act and Inflation Reduction Act funds and the EPA would use Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funds. Of the 86 programs or initiatives reviewed in the final strategy, only 15 are completely new programs announced in the strategy.
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The other 71 are existing programs or initiatives that either already have a food loss and waste focus or that the national strategy has repackaged as food loss and waste solutions. While we had hopes of new, innovative programs being included in the strategy, the good news with these 71 programs is that most, if not all, are already funded, meaning that they are not reliant on an increasingly turbulent Congress for implementation. Of the 15 new programs, which included the EPA’s new consumer education campaign and several new cooperative agreements with land-grant universities, only 2 had specific funding mechanisms. It has become increasingly clear that food rescue organizations and other stakeholders in the food and agriculture space should not consider this strategy as a new rollout of FLW solutions, programs, and funding but rather as an evaluation of the current resources and solutions and how each can be most effectively utilized to achieve the strategy’s goals. In particular, the framing of many of USDA’s programs as FLW solutions offers opportunities to utilize existing funding, data, and infrastructure to solve one of the United States’s most pressing problems.
Whats next?
Now that we have the strategy, it’s time to truly take advantage of the opportunities it presents. In the immediate future at Farmlink, we’re excited to continue optimizing Section 32 as a critical on-farm food loss solution as we anticipate significant surplus recoveries in the fall. As we move forward, we continue to advocate for dignity with food distribution, emphasizing cultural appropriateness and quality in every pound of food we rescue. As outlined in our comments, food rescue organizations are critical stakeholders and thought partners for the agencies. Our inclusion in the strategy as such is an opportunity we are taking full advantage of to help guide federal action to support farmers, feed communities, and heal the planet.
< Back“I learned that what you give comes back to you many fold,” says Peggy White Wellknown Buffalo, founder of the Center Pole organization. “I grew up poor with nothing, but I have always shared whatever I had, and it has always come back to me in many unexpected ways.” The Center Pole, a 501(c)(3) Native nonprofit organization, characterizes this sentiment. Peggy grew up in Garryowen, Montana as a member of the Crow Tribe along with her eight siblings. Influenced by the hardships she faced while growing up on the Crow Indian Reservation, Peggy founded the Center Pole in 1999. The organization strives to strengthen the wellbeing of the Crow Community, providing them with the means necessary to flourish in today’s society while embracing their own values and traditions.
Peggy conveys to me how in the 1800’s, “when [the Crow people] were placed on reservations, [the United States Government] gave each Crow member land to live on.” Peggy’s great-grandmother, Ha Eh Gush Wellknown Buffalo, was thus allotted a piece of land. When she passed, Peggy inherited a portion of her great-grandmother’s land and decided to found the Center Pole on it. Peggy explains how, “food has always been the way to control our votes, our power, our wellbeing,” but the Center Pole aims to curtail this.
In Crow culture, the Center Pole “gives strength and guidance and it’s where you go for help. It connects you to heaven, to a bada di a, the Creator” tells Peggy. Today, the Center Pole offers a variety of programs and services to the Crow Community that aim to strengthen knowledge and awareness and promote positive systemic change in Native communities. Currently, the Center Pole transports and distributes around 120,000 pounds of food to community members each month.
By selflessly using her piece of inherited land to positively impact the lives of others, Peggy epitomizes an altruistic, giving persona—utilizing the land not for herself, but for those in need. She states that sharing and giving what you have, “is an indigenous way that works,” it always comes back to you. “It is like trusting your universe and the Creator completely.”
As such, just last week, a man stopped by the Center Pole and handed Peggy an envelope with $4,000 in cash to help her continue with her work. The man appeared “just out of the blue” she told me. The man had been researching Peggy and the organization and felt inspired to contribute toward furthering the Center Pole’s mission. Peggy provides the Universe with her energy and resources, and the Universe and people around her return to her with the same. In addition to moments like this, Peggy says she focuses on “the happiness and positive change in [her] community,” which motivates her to continue her impactful work every day.
On July 17th, The Farmlink Project helped connect 40,000 pounds of potatoes from Strebin Farms in Troutdale, Oregon to the Center Pole in Garryowen, Montana.
Peggy White Wellknown Buffalo
Founder of The Center Pole
“I learned that what you give comes back to you many fold,” says Peggy White Wellknown Buffalo, founder of the Center Pole organization. “I grew up poor with nothing, but I have always shared whatever I had, and it has always come back to me in many unexpected ways.” The Center Pole, a 501(c)(3) Native nonprofit organization, characterizes this sentiment. Peggy grew up in Garryowen, Montana as a member of the Crow Tribe along with her eight siblings. Influenced by the hardships she faced while growing up on the Crow Indian Reservation, Peggy founded the Center Pole in 1999. The organization strives to strengthen the wellbeing of the Crow Community, providing them with the means necessary to flourish in today’s society while embracing their own values and traditions.
Peggy conveys to me how in the 1800’s, “when [the Crow people] were placed on reservations, [the United States Government] gave each Crow member land to live on.” Peggy’s great-grandmother, Ha Eh Gush Wellknown Buffalo, was thus allotted a piece of land. When she passed, Peggy inherited a portion of her great-grandmother’s land and decided to found the Center Pole on it. Peggy explains how, “food has always been the way to control our votes, our power, our wellbeing,” but the Center Pole aims to curtail this.
In Crow culture, the Center Pole “gives strength and guidance and it’s where you go for help. It connects you to heaven, to a bada di a, the Creator” tells Peggy. Today, the Center Pole offers a variety of programs and services to the Crow Community that aim to strengthen knowledge and awareness and promote positive systemic change in Native communities. Currently, the Center Pole transports and distributes around 120,000 pounds of food to community members each month.
By selflessly using her piece of inherited land to positively impact the lives of others, Peggy epitomizes an altruistic, giving persona—utilizing the land not for herself, but for those in need. She states that sharing and giving what you have, “is an indigenous way that works,” it always comes back to you. “It is like trusting your universe and the Creator completely.”
As such, just last week, a man stopped by the Center Pole and handed Peggy an envelope with $4,000 in cash to help her continue with her work. The man appeared “just out of the blue” she told me. The man had been researching Peggy and the organization and felt inspired to contribute toward furthering the Center Pole’s mission. Peggy provides the Universe with her energy and resources, and the Universe and people around her return to her with the same. In addition to moments like this, Peggy says she focuses on “the happiness and positive change in [her] community,” which motivates her to continue her impactful work every day.
On July 17th, The Farmlink Project helped connect 40,000 pounds of potatoes from Strebin Farms in Troutdale, Oregon to the Center Pole in Garryowen, Montana.
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