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Just beyond the playground of East Austin’s Cunningham Elementary School, ancient crops are uniting a new generation through the power of storytelling and teamwork.

The Central Texas Cherokee Township and nonprofit Partners for Education, Agriculture and Sustainability, or PEAS, grow Native crops including corn and beans on a small farm at Cunningham to teach students and families about sustainable agriculture, culture and history.

PEAS has partnered with Austin ISD schools for 15 years. Two years ago, the organization began working with Central Texas Cherokees to plant Native seeds at Cunningham. Now, students and families in the East Austin neighborhood help tend the farm through school-day lessons and after-school programs, on occasion bringing home food harvested from the crops. Families say the farm gives students a rare chance to step away from screens, spend time outdoors and connect with their own cultural traditions or those of their neighbors.

Outdoor educators work with students throughout the school year to plant seeds, tend the farm and harvest crops. For the past two years, many of those seeds have come from the Central Texas Cherokee Township, whose members also teach students about the crops’ history, cultural significance and practical uses.

Doug Martin, a member of the Central Texas Cherokee Township who works with students and community members at the farm, said planting corn with students often makes connections between the crop’s history and their own stories. For many students, he noted, the agricultural lessons are already a part of their personal history.

“People from places where their grandpas, their grandmas grew corn,” he said, “they are connected to it.”

Doug Martin with the Central Texas Cherokee Township said the corn stalk has grown “as high as an elephant’s eye” at Cunningham Elementary school garden on April 27, 2026. LEILA SAIDANE FOR AUSTIN CURRENT

Stories and tradition meet agriculture

Students grow corn, beans and gourds together in a traditional Cherokee planting method. Corn stalks provide support for the beans, while the gourds spread across the ground below. The practice, known as the “three sisters,” is a Cherokee tradition that he shares with students every year along with dances and stories traditional to planting and harvesting.

One year, some students created corn dolls from the crops, representing characters from the stories they heard.

Volunteer Alexa Libro waters a garden bed at the Cunningham Elementary school garden on April 27, 2026. LEILA SAIDANE FOR AUSTIN CURRENT

While PEAS manages the farm’s day-to-day operations, members of the Central Texas Cherokee Township volunteer at the site and lead cultural presentations. The groups also teach families how to cook with the crops. At one school, Martin said, a parent-teacher association even made tamales with the fresh corn masa for a fundraiser.

Martin said families often find their own histories reflected in the crops. Parents have shared stories about relatives or ancestors who harvested similar crops across the U.S., Central and South America, from farms in Kansas to ancient milpas in Mexico.

The post-pandemic project started from a drive to build community and unique access to seeds from the Cherokee Nation seedbank. For two years, Martin worked with St. Edwards University to ensure the seeds, originally native to North Carolina, survived the Texas heat. Once the crops proved viable, he offered the seeds to organizations operating farms at schools, including Cunningham. The program also operates at Allison Elementary through Land Justice Community School and the school’s parent-teacher organization.

“We are able to continue a family tradition they would not have access to,” Martin said. “There are some political divisions, there’s the border, there’s all these sorts of things that people point to to divide up groups … When we talk about corn, we talk about how everyone grows corn.”

Maria Guzman, whose daughter attends Cunningham, said her family visits the farm nearly each week. She said it has been a formative experience for her children to witness the cycle of a crop. Her daughter has brought home plants and stories, Guzman said, adding she has become known as the “plant lady” on their street.

Life lessons in sustainability

Magda Hernandez, an outdoor education specialist with PEAS, said some seeds planted by community members after school are nurtured by students during the school day and into the harvest, creating a multigenerational experience that reaches beyond the classroom and into the community.

The relationship is reciprocal. Through planting and stories that surround it, students learn about how plants, like people, rely on each other and make the end result stronger.

But, as is true in many cultures, it’s corn that has become central. The crop has become one of the most anticipated parts of the program for both students and staff, said Hernandez. The patience it takes to wait for the corn to grow throughout the school year and into summer camp is an added life lesson.

“There is this beauty of them walking underneath the corn and the corn creating this shadow for them and protecting them from the sunlight in the summertime,” Hernandez said, adding that students are eager to harvest. “But there are always the questions of ‘How about now? How about today?’”

Partners for Education, Agriculture, and Sustainability (PEAS) executive director Lauren Zappone hands out watermelon seeds to plant at the Cunningham Elementary school garden on April 27, 2026. LEILA SAIDANE FOR AUSTIN CURRENT

Acacia Coronado is Austin Current's education reporter. She is a Texas native and has previously written for The Associated Press, The Texas Tribune and The Wall Street Journal, among others.