He used to cook the food and now he’s been inspired to grow it - not just for himself but with his whole community. Trent Stokes was born in Edmonton and raised in Fort Smith. He spent many years working in the food service industry and recently shifted into agriculture and environmental work. He’s interested in getting his community into growing their own vegetables and food and supporting fellow community members who also struggle with addictions like he did.

“I want to help my community with that aspect as best I can, but it's hard to take on single people, person by person. So my whole idea was, maybe, if I can fix the soil that everybody walks on, that maybe the healing will transfer up into them, and if the ground is healed, maybe it'll transfer into the rest of humanity. Wouldn't mind getting all of humanity on that same page. But baby steps, start with my community, start with my family, my friends and hopefully it can grow from that, like a seed does, starts small and grows big,” Stokes dreams aloud.

When he first got started bringing this dream to life he was unemployed and he was growing plants to fill emptiness in himself. The plants got him thinking about how to bring out more in others. Cultivating plants in the basement, Stokes realized they needed food and sustenance but he couldn’t afford that so he learned how to feed them for free. His interest in science grew from there and he learned about biology and everything he could for fun until he decided to go back to school.

Stokes speaks to what he feels is a broader societal problem, “A lot of our roots have been taken out of the ground. Not a lot of people know how to use the ground and use the earth, and that's our mom. A lot of people just shrug her off. That's probably where the disconnection comes from. We’ve gotta get those roots back down there.”

His advice for students considering leaving their home communities to pursue their education is based on advice he received when he was nervous of travelling to other communities to play soccer or participate in biathlon. An elder told him he wasn’t leaving home, he’s just going to a different room, and to see the earth as his whole house. By focusing on the work to be done, knowing you’re still at “home”, it can be a lot more comfortable with less reason to fear.

“There's always a silver lining in everything that we do. It takes away from a lot of frustration.”

When it comes to obstacles, the biggest one Stokes faced was his addiction, something he struggled with for 15 years. He’s been sober for five years and going out and connecting with others is what he finds most challenging. He finds there’s a lack of interest in in-person gatherings and people have more interest in screens.  

If Stokes could give a message to his younger self if would be, “Failure is the best option. There is no such thing as destructive failure. If you actually succeed at something, you should find a way and fail at it, because if you succeed at something, how do you know you're doing it the easy way? How do you know you're not doing it the hard way? With failure comes a lot of learning… I'm learning, at this very moment in life, that that failure is going to grow me into something that I can help the community with, and that can be transferred into every human being. Failure is awesome, because it'll help you learn.”

The other thing Stokes would want to tell his younger self is that ”it's okay to be afraid. Fear is everywhere. If the world would have told me that I was going to be afraid to do so many things in my life, maybe I could have approached it in a different manner. Facing those fears has gotta be one of the most rewarding things that I've ever done for myself. My message to everybody is just go get it, man. Nobody else is reaching for it because it's still there.”

To manage his mental health, Stokes learns about plants and science to take him away from all the racing thoughts in his head. Raising plants from seeds and watching them grow from his love and care is rewarding; watching for new leaves fills him with joy. He has restructured his routine to dump only positive energy on his plants and it’s helped his plants grow, in his experience, where venting negativity was harmful to their development.

As far as inspiration, Stokes looks to his nephew and the future he wants him to have. He wants to see the next generation of elders picking up the cultural ways to inspire the youth and to carry on the good work of the current elders. He feels led to repair the damaged world he sees around him and he wants to shine for his nephew. To inspire youth he wants to say, “the world is your oyster, so go get it. It's your world, and it's up to you to build it.”

For a long time he used to cook the food and lately he’s been inspired to grow it - feeding and healing himself and his community from the ground up. While many fear failure, he’s got a message that embraces its lessons, something he’s learned coming back from addiction and finding a new path forward. Overcoming fear and finding silver linings, he’s found positive words help plants grow and nurturing life brings its own joy and accomplishment.

Thanks to Alison Tedford Seaweed for authoring this article.