Crystal Cavalier-Keck

Teaching cultural lessons and self-sustainment through indigenous seed gardening.

Crystal Cavalier-Keck is the co-founder of Seven Directions of Service with her husband. She is a citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation in Burlington, NC. She is the Chair of the Environmental Justice Committee for the NAACP, a board member of the Haw River Assembly and the Women's Resource Center in Burlington, NC. Crystal is currently working on her Doctorate at the University of Dayton and dissertation on Social Justice of Missing Murdered Indigenous Women and Gas/Oil Pipelines in frontline communities. 

Crystal’s organization works to educate children and community members on how to farm in a self-sustaining way, which involves cultural classes and hands-on gardening. She draws on her ancestors’ knowledge of farming and agriculture to help her community have access to locally grown food, which is especially important since there are no farmer’s markets in her area, and the community is dependent on grocery stores only. Crystal aims to expand her garden programming and offer more culture classes so youth can learn more about their culture and the connections to food. She currently volunteers teaching youth through healing with traditional/modern stick-ball, lacrosse and culture classes. She believes that healing is important and building a health promotion foundation that embraces bio-psycho-socio-spiritual-ceremonial approaches and traditional medicine. Crystal is also an expert in her field of Strategic Intelligence, Political Campaigns, and Public Administration. She has conducted trainings along and around the East Coast on Coordinated Tribal/Community Response for emergency management through natural or man-made disasters.