Our Program Areas

Urban Conservation and Restoration
Cultural Connections and Healing
Environmental Education

Read further for more details about each of our program areas, and visit our Volunteer Opportunities page to find out how you can get involved!

Urban Conservation and Restoration

For generations, Dakota people have cared for and been cared for by this land. That relationship and knowledge is the foundation for our conservation and restoration projects.

Sixteen years after Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary opened to the public, a proliferation of plant and animal life has returned but much work remains to be done. Guided by our Dakota values and updated Natural Resources Management Plan, we continued our partnership with the City of Saint Paul for more than fifteen Restore! events, engaging over 400 volunteers to help us remove displaced plant relatives, conduct wildlife and habitat surveys, and plant trees, wildflowers, grasses and seeds. In 2021, we also increasingly framed our restoration activities from an Environmental Justice perspective.

178201275_324821862312088_7679416555283720124_n (1).jpg

Web capture_12-7-2021_155742_lowerphalencreek-my.sharepoint.com.jpeg

Cultural Connections and Healing

All of our work —at Wakáŋ Tipi / Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, and throughout the East Side —takes place on Dakota land. It is our duty to honor and care for this land with the perspectives, language, and culture of Dakota people at the forefront of our work. To this end, we host a variety of programs that reinforce the relationships Indigenous people have with these spaces, including Dakota Storytelling, Plant Medicine Workshops, and Medicine Bundle making.

Environmental Education

Knowledge is a critical component to the protection and support of recovering ecosystems. We rely on a growing network of Native and non-Native knowledge-keepers with a passion for sharing their expertise. We work with artists, ecologists, Tribal Nations, and many other loving community members who share their cultural and traditional ecological knowledge to help us share these teachings with our community.

Expanding our program staff and adding a more overt Environmental Justice lens to our work allowed us to honor more of the many requests we often receive from schools, youth groups, universities, and a wide range of partner organizations. In 2021, we more than doubled our number of site visits at Wakáŋ Tipi / Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, presented at numerous festivals and community events, and provided virtual educational events for all-ages. We also took steps to expand the scope of our work, hosting multiple site-walks along the Phalen Creek corridor and our first event at Pig’s Eye Regional Park.