Our community programs are rooted in empowerment. They are designed to move beyond traditional aid by providing tools, resources, and opportunities that enable individuals, families, and groups to take control of their own development. These initiatives prioritize sustainable, long-term change over temporary assistance, fostering resilience, skill-building, and healthy interdependence. Empowerment focused programming includes capacity building, economic opportunity, active participation, and individualized support. We grow with mutual respect for each other, acknowledging that everyone has valuable experiences and perspectives to contribute to individual and community healing.

Currently, our community programs include:

Free and Sliding Scale Holistic Health Services

Youth Education

Community Events

Free and Sliding Scale Services

Sliding Scale Massage and Pain Free Clinic

In collaboration with Bulltánica, we offer monthly sliding scale community massage sessions to support pain relief and well-being. We support people living with chronic pain, cancer, chronic illness, joint pain and injury, postpartum healing, drug and alcohol addiction, sleep issues, anxiety and depression, and other mental health concerns. We also host quarterly Pain Free Community Clinic days providing donation-based multi-disciplinary holistic health services.

Decolonizing Yoga: For Adults and Kids

Beginning in summer 2024, we launched two weekly free and donation-based community yoga classes: one for adults and one for parents and kids.

Community Food Security Initiatives

Edible and Medicinal Foraging

In spring and summer, we host classes on edible and native medicinal plants, from identification and foraging to cultivating edible and medicinal gardens on the land you steward. We frequently teach drop-in youth classes at Duke Park and other Durham city parks focused on wild edible spring flowers, greens, and fruit—expanding access to families who can’t commit to multi-week or registration based programs. We teach adults and kids to safely identify and forage nutrient dense wild edible fruit, greens, seeds, and roots.

Winter Cache Project

Throughout the growing season, we host community garden work days and distributed prepared medicinal and wild food products to over fifty families. In fall 2025, we partnered with farmers and backyard gardeners to can over 200 pints of preserved fruit and vegetables to distribute to twenty five families.

Youth Education

Martha Ruth Hayes Children’s Education Garden

Bull City Genius Club

Decolonizing Yoga for Kids and Parents

In 2025, we launched a weekly drop-in, donation-based community yoga class for kids and their parents.

Earth Magic Kids Afterschool Program

In Fall 2023 through Winter 2024, we launched the first Earth Magic Kids afterschool program with support from the We Are The Ones grant. The program engaged a dozen youth participants in child-led explorations of botany, life cycles, anatomy, and the uses of edible and medicinal plants. Building on the children’s interests, sessions incorporated art, storytelling, and outdoor discovery to foster curiosity and connection to the natural world.

Tot and Me Botany and Nature Babies

From 2022–2024, Cultivating Resistance organized and led multi-week spring and fall classes at Duke Gardens, including Tot and Me Botany and Nature Babies, introducing families to early plant science and nature-based learning.