Cultivating dreams: Chinle Planting Hope giving opportunities to local youth

Chinle Planting Hope Executive Director Janice Dunn, front left, poses with staff and volunteers in front of the new bookmobile in June. (Photos/Chinle Planting Hope)

FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. — When Janice Dunn was growing up in the Chinle area, there were no parks or playgrounds. Now, as executive director of the non-profit Chinle Planting Hope, Dunn plans to create more opportunities for the children who live there, including her own.

“There was really no structures out here to play,” Dunn said. “There’s really no place to go, so everything was our imagination.”

Dunn grew up playing outdoors with her cousins, making mud pies or seeing who could jump the highest over a sagebrush. Often, they would visit nearby Canyon de Chelly.

Though now there are playgrounds at the schools, they are only open to students and locked after hours. Burger King has a play place that is getting remodeled, but it has been closed for four years, since COVID-19 shook the area hard.

With the gift of land from a local church, Chinle Planting Hope has recently created a successful bookmobile and thrift store. Now, with a $100,000 grant from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, they are adding an Imagination Station.

(Chinle Planting Hope Executive Director Janice Dunn.)

(The Imagination Station will be a 2,400-square foot play space for children, coming in spring.)

“The Imagination Station is going to be similar to when you travel to different big cities where they have children’s museums,” Dunn said.

The 2,400-square foot area will be a hands-on play area for children, with little mini-communities such as a grocery store, a Lego and STEM area, and a reading nook that will work with the bookmobile books. There will also be a small café and bathrooms.

The space is being built from the ground-up with contractors from Phoenix. The foundation is up and Dunn hopes the area will be open by spring.

Chinle Planting Hope will also use grant money to expand their bike shop and bike repair facility. They have partnered with Silver Stallion Bicycle out of Gallup, New Mexico, which brings bikes across the Nation. Though Silver Stallion and other organizations work to get kids on wheels, there is no actual brick and mortar bike shop on the reservation, so this will be a first.

All of Chinle Planting Hope’s buildings are donated shipping containers, and they have one for the bike shop, but hope to add another to make the building more functional.

The bike shop, bookmobile and thrift store will be open every Friday starting in April.

(Staff and volunteers at the Chinle Planting Hope S'more Reading S.T.E.M. event in November 2023.)

The Imagination Station will most-likely be donation-based, but the bike shop will have small fees, said Amber Drinen, who volunteers as the program coordinator.

“Chinle Planting Hope uses an asset-based community development mindset where we believe that the best answers to community issues are already present within the community,” Drinen said. “We’re always trying to create jobs and think it’s better when things are a part of the local economy whenever possible. Our programs like the bookmobile and community garden are always free and available to everyone. Our programs like the thrift store and bike shop will charge small amounts but it’s always very reasonable. If you can’t afford even that, we have a community volunteer team and there will be ways that you can volunteer and make it happen. So we never turn anyone away. All of our programs, whether they’re free or have a small fee, are there to meet a need expressed by the community and to serve the community.”

A space for the community

Chinle Planting Hope was established in 2016, and became a 501c(3) non-profit organization in 2019. Team members originally met in a volunteer’s driveway. However, in 2020, Memorial Baptist Church shutdown during the COVID-19 pandemic and loaned their space to the organization..

With access to the church, the team was able to prepare food boxes for the elderly. What started out as an initial 20 boxes for the Chinle Senior Center grew to 1,200-1,500 boxes distributed throughout the Chinle area by the end of the pandemic, with volunteers buying and distributing the food locally. Their work was highlighted in a New York Times article in May 2020, which helped raise funds for the organization.

(Chinle Planting Hope's elderly relief program is still in place, with the organization delivering food boxes and other needed supplies. Here, volunteers are pictured gathering turkeys to give away for a Thanksgiving meals.)

Seeing the impact Chinle Planting Hope was making on the community, Memorial Baptist decided to loan the organization two acres of its land.

“Out here on the reservation, getting land is really hard. So we are pretty fortunate,” Dunn said.

Since Chinle Planting Hope was granted the land, they have grown — figuratively and literally — exponentially.

“We started taking all these dreams that we had and talking about a bookmobile and a library and actually started pursuing them,” Drinen said.

The R.E.A.D. (Read, Empower, Adventure, Dream) in Beauty Bookmobile launched last year, bringing books to remote areas around the reservation. The closest public library to Chinle is 30 minutes away at Diné College in Tsaile. The bookmobile now has over 1,500 patrons and has been popular at events like Ganado Cultural Night and Chinle Planting Hope’s events — Read S’more S.T.E.M. night in November and Fall in Love with Reading on Valentine’s Day.

(The Chinle Planting Hope bookmobile launched last year. - A Rotary eClub District Grant project))

They plan to add workstations with laptops and hotspots for the internet to the bookmobile, adding another much-needed resource on the reservation.

Dunn started out as a volunteer and became the first full-time employee. She was promoted to executive director in the fall. She said one of her dreams for Chinle Planting Hope was a thrift store, as Chinle residents must travel long distances for basic items.

Chinle Planting Hope is now proud to host the bustling HOPE (Helping Others, the Planet and Environment) community thrift store, which has everything from baby to plus-size clothing, household items and furniture. The thrift store became a reality with another grant from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, which gives to Native American nonprofits that support undeserved communities.

Dunn is also proud of the new “Garden of Dreams” Community Garden, which has a Tuff Shed, greenhouses and four planters.

(The Chinle Planting Hope “Garden of Dreams” Community Garden is just one of the organization’s new spaces.)

“Last year was the first time we grew stuff in our backyard,” Dunn said. “We have a raised bed and two greenhouses, they did really well. We fought with the sun and the wind.”

The University of Arizona conducted free gardening workshops there in fall.

Other organization partners include Navajo Solar Lights, which helps to install reservation homes with electricity, and has trained staff to do installs for local elders.

Chinle Planting Hope is also developing a farmer’s and artisan market, and has started art classes. An outdoor playground is high on the priorities list. Dunn’s dream for the playground includes a play structure in the middle with a walking track around it for adults. This way parents can walk around the track, get exercise and watch their children at the same time. She has also been toying with the idea of a skate park.

“It’s an honor being the president — being able to do all the work we’re doing for the community, out here in Chinle where we really have nothing,” Dunn said.

Visit chinleplantinghope.com for more information.