annual acorn harvest – Alameda Native History Project

Discover Alameda’s Acorn Revival, reconnecting community with indigenous foodways through harvest, processing, and culinary celebration.

The First Annual Acorn Harvest is part of a series of events by the Alameda Native History Project known as the ACORNS! Project Arc. This series was made possible in part by a grant through the Alameda County Arts Commission’s ARTSFUND.

ACORNS! Consists of four main parts:

Acorn Granary Challenge
Annual Acorn Harvest
Acorn Processing
ACORNS! Culinary Series

The Acorn Granary Challenge

A series of events in the community. We invite community members to come together and challenge themselves to create an Acorn Granary, a traditional Native American Storage device to hold acorns throughout the year—but, specifically, built for the purpose of holding acorns over winter, because the Acorn Harvest is in the fall.

Through gathering natural materials and processing them into the supplies we use to build the granaries, participants will gain first-hand knowledge and experience of the importance of access to natural materials and the challenges of preparing for winter. Community members will discover that survival cannot be done alone and that the challenge of the Acorn Granary is not one person against nature. It is about how communities come together and build natural, regenerative systems to adapt and evolve with the landscape in a respectful and sustainable way.

When we came together in July, we came as a small group of individuals taking part in the first-ever Granary Challenge. Our participants ranged from 2nd and 3rd graders, college undergraduates, parents, and grandparents, from diverse social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. And we want you to know, that the framework of our granary was built by our youngest participants—and we are amazed, grateful, and humbled by their instinctive expertise and boundless enthusiasm.

About the Granary

Our Acorn Granary is hosted in the community by the Alameda Point Collaborative Farm2Market. Our granary was built using willow reeds and bay leaves donated from the Land Partners in Castro Valley, pine boughs and poles gathered locally, twine from local hardware stores, and the granary is topped with marine canvas donated from Pacific Crest Canvas.

The Annual Acorn Harvest

The Harvest runs from September through November. The efforts of this community-led initiative are aimed at reopening indigenous foodways. Acorns have not been gathered for food in Alameda, and much of the Bay Area, for over 300 years. Part of decolonizing ourselves, our stomachs, and the places we live, relies on reconnecting with the natural world around us and partaking in the ancient practices of this land.

By practicing sustainable, regenerative agriculture, we are becoming good stewards of our natural world, making space, and opening the pathways to food sovereignty, healing, and wellness for ourselves, and for more than 25,000 Native American/Alaskan Native and Indigenous People currently living in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Even though this was the first-ever Acorn Harvest announced in the City of Alameda in recent history—with a limited budget, and not a lot of marketing involved—we were tremendously grateful and surprised by the wellspring of support from our friends and neighbors in Alameda, and from our followers on social media.

The people who volunteered with us for the Annual Acorn Harvest ranged in age from young to old and represented a large contingent from many different social, cultural, and economic backgrounds. The Acorn Harvest was truly a family event, and we were honored to create these bonds and reconnect, together, with the natural urban forest, animals, and environment we depend on, but often overlook.

Through our community-building and sustainable practices, we helped to divert edible food from waste bins and compost piles. The acorns we did not use for food, we shared with 100K Trees For Humanity, which will germinate and plant new Oak trees in an effort “to increase our urban forest canopies, restore natural habitats, increase urban carbon sequestration capacity to help cities meet carbon reduction goals and for greater equity for cooler healthier communities.”

Acorn Processing & ACORNS! Culinary Series

The acorns we harvested are now being stored over winter in safe locations around the island. In the spring, we will begin processing our harvested acorns to produce Acorn Flour, and Acorn Meal, which we will offer to local Indigenous communities, the Muwekma Ohlone Tribe of the San Francisco Bay Area, and will also be used for our ACORNS! Culinary Series—featuring Traditional and Contemporary Indigenous, and International Cuisine. Our culinary series is generously hosted by the Alameda Park and Recreation Department, at the Mastick Senior Center, and will take place every Sunday in April 2025.