A modest, two-acre farm just off Interstate 5 near Salem aims to save the planet.
Elderberry Wisdom Farms, launched in 2018, is the creation of Rose High Bear. The 81-year-old Alaskan Native works with a team of interns on urban forestry and Indigenous conservation practices.
But funding challenges make its future uncertain.
A group of young people monitored a large kettle of pressed elderberries inside the Elderberry Wisdom Farm classroom on a recent Thursday. David Mora-Flores studied a long silver thermometer, as High Bear observed nearby.
“So, we're waiting,” said Mora-Flores. “It's at 133 right now. We're trying to get it to about 90 degrees.
At 90 degrees, the group can add flavoring and pH stabilizing agents — honey, lemon and cinnamon juice.
“We’re using raw organic honey from the Willamette Valley, and we don't want to put it in something more than like 90 degrees, so we can keep all the health properties of the honey,” explained High Bear. She said the cinnamon isn’t meant for flavoring, but to help increase blood circulation throughout the body when drinking it.
It's a lesson in product creation and marketing, as this syrup will be used in spritzers and other items, sold at markets in Salem and Corvallis.
Mora-Flores graduated with a degree in environmental studies from the University of Oregon last year. After an internship at the rural nonprofit, he was hired on as Elderberry Wisdom Farms’ urban forest coordinator. He now practices sustainable forestry with a Native emphasis.
“Rose likes to focus on the Seven Generations before and after,” Mora-Flores said. “And so, we're really big proponents of not only doing the work and, you know, checking off that box, but we really want to see the lasting results and our influence that we leave for the next generations.”
Another intern, Artemisia Valdes-Loor, identifies as South American and studies biology and art at Reed College. She said High Bear’s program brings together urban forestry, Native plant nursery operations and micro enterprises, putting all of those different practices in the context of Traditional Ecological Knowledge, or TEK, of Native peoples.
Valdes-Loor went on, saying the program also layers in “how we can apply that to our scientific understanding of climate resilience, climate change, using the practices that have been tried and true for endless generations and are ancestral and in tune with the land around us.”
It's a course High Bear herself didn’t see 30 years ago. Back then, the Alaska Native of Deg Hitʼan and Iñupiat descent helmed an award-winning audio series produced out of Portland called “Wisdom of the Elders,” which profiled venerable people from across Indian Country. Then her husband and Lakota medicine man, Martin High Bear, died.
“When he died in 1995, I seemed to continue to get messages through interpreters. So, it was from him,” she said. “It wasn't really a dream. It wasn't really a vision. It was an interpretation from one of the people that did interpretations for Martin. So, he told me that I would be leaving Portland.”
The need for more money
High Bear bought her two-acre farm in 2017. The following year, after setting up a $400,000 endowment for “Wisdom of the Elders” through a legacy funder, she left the organization and christened her site Elderberry Wisdom Farm.
It was 2018, when environmental support was strong at the federal level: the U.S. Forest Service’s Urban and Community Forestry program got a $29 million boost in the omnibus appropriations bill, while another funding increase was in that year’s Farm Bill for U.S. Department of Agriculture conservation work.
Since then, High Bear’s focus has been on getting her hands dirty — with help. Intern Claudia Vega walked to some rows of potted yew trees that a local resident donated to the farm.
“When I was taking them out and replanting them, I said, ‘Oh, like, you're doing so good. I'm so proud of you. You've already grown so much. You will continue to do so many great things. It's gonna be okay.’”
Vega’s parents are from Mexico. She’s studied human development, family science and sustainable plant systems at the University of Arizona. She’s also learned traditional medicine, including cancer-treating properties of yew trees, from the Tohono O’odam and Yaqui peoples.
“It was such a magical experience,” Vega recalled. “And when we look at them down here, they're so small, but they're so resilient. I mean, even just interacting with the trees is medicine itself.”
Operations have largely gone well for Elderberry Wisdom Farms, especially in its first seven years. But the environmental — and political climate — have heated up since.
Last year, the Trump Administration slashed many budgets and programs tied to diversity, equity and inclusion, as well as environmental programs. High Bear recalls what she was ready to do with a $749,000 grant from the USDA before the axe fell.
“Planting trees in the city of Salem in the, you could call it the Title I school neighborhoods, low-income neighborhoods, where there is low tree canopies,” she said. “So, you know, we were really excited, and then February 28, 2025, I lost four staff all in the same day after we got notified of the freeze, so I had to build all over again.”
Two months later, U.S. Representative Andrea Salinas (D-Oregon) was able to unfreeze the funds. But another grant — amounting to $350,000 for youth who are Black, Indigenous and people of color to do urban forestry projects — was never restored.
Elderberry Farms is pushing on with its available money, which runs out in 2028. Intern Joaquin Ocana is of Welsh, English and Guatemalan descent, and said he juggles several duties for High Bear.
“I'm the native plant nursery coordinator, so I help figure out what is most important for us and what we're growing and how we're growing it,” he said, “and then the Elderberry Wisdom TV and radio show.”
The show is carried by Capital Community Media and KMUZ in Salem. Ocana, High Bear and Mora-Flores co-host and produce the program, which explores TEK and Native stewardship of the land.
“The prophecy says the day will come when the people of the earth will turn to Native people to learn how to care for the earth, and to care for one another. And so, you know, we're just trying to help fulfill that,” High Bear said. “It just comes from the spirit world. This work is really spiritual work.”
Hopes for the future
High Bear is hoping to keep Elderberry Wisdom Farm going past 2028. She said besides local partners, Oregon’s state government might be swayed to help.
The farm is already participating in an urban forestry apprenticeship program, so High Bear said they hope to get funding to provide that down the line. They’re starting the pilot next year with the hopes of gaining support from Oregon’s Bureau of Labor and Industry.
Despite the uncertainty, High Bear and her interns are pressing on. Damien Salazar is of Mexican-Thai heritage and studies fisheries and wildlife conservation at Oregon State University. He’s unsure where he’ll go after, but he hopes it’s something similar to his time at Elderberry.
“To be perfectly honest,” Salazar said, “just as long as I'm outside, you know, getting my hands dirty and just bettering the planet, I'm happy with that.”
Copyright 2026, KLCC News.
