Dreaming in Acres

How Black Oregon Land Trust is reclaiming land and rewriting the reclaiming land and rewriting the definition of food justice.

Qiddist leads Black Oregon Land Trust (BOLT), an organization that returns land to Black and Indigenous leadership. Much of this land was taken away in the past through unfair treatment, racism and forced displacement. BOLT works to build long-term access, equity and sustainability through collective ownership.

Founded in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic, BOLT has become a model for land justice in Oregon. They support youth education, land acquisition, healing programs and farmers. With help from Oregon Food Bank and Rooted + Rising, they’re building the framework to sustain a movement rooted in food justice. This movement generates nourishing food, cultural connection and the freedom to realize a self-determined future with dignity. BOLT helps Black and Indigenous families gain secure access to land, creating opportunities to build generational wealth while strengthening connections to land, community and culture.

Aria Charles, BOLT’s development and operations coordinator, is passionate about growing food and community. Alongside Qiddist, she’s correcting long-standing misconceptions and moving policymakers to treat land access and food insecurity as one issue.

“We’re challenging those legacies just through the fact that we are a group of Black people that are owning multiple acres of land and farming on it in Oregon,” said Aria.

BOLT believes food justice means protecting the people, land and resources that make healthy food possible.

“I actually can’t think about food justice without all the foundations a community needs to thrive,” said Qiddist. “Land is the foundation — not only of food sovereignty but of culture, home and community.”

Growing community

BOLT emerged from conversations among farmers and organizers responding to the disruptions of the COVID-19 crisis. As systems failed and inequalities deepened, they imagined a different future — one rooted in land and resilience.

“Black farmers were trying to do everything — grow food, shift policy, build community,” recalled Qiddist. “So we asked: what if an organization could carry some of that weight?"

In just three years, BOLT has become that organization.

Rooted in justice

Last year, BOLT helped secure funding to purchase nine acres of land for Roberta Eaglehorse-Ortiz, an Indigenous wellness practitioner and farmer whose dream was to create space for fishing, herbal medicine and Indigenous cultural practices.

When Roberta’s original funding fell through, she turned to BOLT. With support from the broader community, BOLT helped raise $40,000 in small donations, demonstrating the power of grassroots momentum and collaborative resource generation. They secured the land through community donors and a private low-interest loan of $150,000. Today, Roberta and her community steward the land. In the next one to two years, BOLT plans to transfer full ownership to her — BOLT’s first land transfer and a milestone in their vision for equity through ownership.

Roberta and Qiddist first connected while farming at Oregon Food Bank’s Unity Farm in 2017. Later, Roberta and her son volunteered to help build the yurt at BOLT’s Mother(s)land headquarters.

“Roberta’s been in the community a long time, and it felt right that this land would return to someone who will honor it,” said Aria.

Its vision for the next three to five years is both ambitious and grounded. Qiddist defines success as securing more land for conservation and for Black and Indigenous farmers and building the infrastructure to sustain the work.

“We’re still running on passion and volunteerism,” she said. “But we need stability.

BOLT is also investing in leadership, cultivating a new generation of landliterate, community-rooted youth who grow food, steward ecosystems and organize for justice.

A new kind of land trust

While most U.S. land trusts focus on conservation that separates people from land, BOLT embraces a different truth: conservation and human stewardship can coexist. Rooted in an Indigenous worldview, their model treats land not as property but as a living relative to be cared for in a relationship.

BOLT offers multiple land access pathways: Some land stays in trust for communal stewardship; some supports homeownership with leased land; and some enables full ownership for long-term stability and generational wealth.

“People are surprised by how nuanced it is,” said Qiddist. “But for us, it’s a return to an Indigenous worldview. Humans and conservation are not at odds.”

Still, doing this work requires more than vision. It requires stability, and that’s where Oregon Food Bank’s partnership and Rooted + Rising have been essential.

Cultivating relationships

At the heart of BOLT and Oregon Food Bank’s partnership is a shared commitment: Food justice and land justice must rise together.

Rooted + Rising has opened national funding streams, increased BOLT’s visibility as a young, BIPOC-led organization and helped build the infrastructure — from staffing to operations — to sustain their vision. This support keeps BOLT rising toward a future where access to food and land is shaped by justice, not race or income.

From restoration to livestock management, each piece of BOLT’s work is part of a larger story: one of repair, reclamation and reimagining.

“Earth stewardship isn’t just planting trees,” said Aria. “It’s about relationships — with land, with people, across generations and geographies.”

Those relationships are sacred.

“The land is a living being. It’s not just something we use. It’s someone we know. Someone we’re in kinship with,” said Aria.

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