Seeds Worth Sowing
By Cecilia Johnson
Zedé Harut doesn’t see parenthood as just one of her many roles in life. She sees it as a sacred calling.
That’s why this mother of two founded and directs Seeds Worth Sowing, a mutual aid-based nonprofit intended to nourish and stabilize the lives of parents, caregivers, and their families.
Based in Minneapolis, Seeds Worth Sowing has mobilized hundreds of volunteers and distributed valuable resources. It’s all in an effort to take care of the people who, according to Zedé, are “taking care of our future — our little ones, who depend entirely on us as financial providers, health care providers, and mental health stabilizers.”
Seeds Worth Sowing sprouted during the uprising of 2020. After the murder of George Floyd and through the ensuing civil unrest, Zedé encountered a flood of social media posts by people who were worried for their families. “One mom couldn't go to the pharmacy for her child's life-saving medications because it burned down,” Zedé reports. She got to work building connections between people and resources, and that organizing grew into the nonprofit she runs today.
Even before the uprising, Zedé recognized the need for better caregiver support. “This all stemmed from me being pregnant with my first child and realizing the poor treatment I was getting as a Black mother,” she says.
While seeking governmental support, she felt judged, violated, and disappointed by official systems and their representatives. “And so I told myself, ‘I'm going to create my own organization,’” she says. “It's going to be non-invasive; it's going to be intentional; it's going to have care at the focus of it.”
Seeds Worth Sowing serves caregivers who have experienced or are experiencing carceral violence—whether they have been incarcerated, have experienced unfair treatment from the legal system, or live in a neighborhood with high levels of police surveillance. Zedé says, “These pressures make it extremely difficult for us to even operate in normalcy, because we're in heightened frightenedness and anxiety in a constant way.”
Zedé adds, “Whether they're single, or undocumented, or coming from incarceration, a lot of people develop loneliness in parenthood, and that results in folks not having access to resources and not getting the proper support to do such a sacred mission.” Seeds Worth Sowing’s Safety Network Building program unites about 11 families, all of whom meet twice a month and receive resources including food and a stipend. Through those efforts, Zedé says, “The exhaustion is shared; the frustration is shared; and also, the joys are shared.”
Zedé herself was raised by her parents, and a “village of women” that included her grandmother, her aunts, and her cousins. She spent her early childhood in North Minneapolis. “The Broadway area was live with culture and shared experience and identities,” she says. “It created my idea of how I see liberation and safety for Minneapolis: envisioning what it looks like to rely on one another first, and to be each other's community calls first, and not having to outsource our support.”
“Minneapolis is definitely working to be transformative in many fields, so it does provide hope for me.”
“Sometimes it provides frustration. But it definitely does give me hope — that we can absolutely mobilize and strategize and create these paths together on our road to liberation.”
