The American Indian Community House partners with Grinding Stone Collective to offer our community access to free Native and Indigenous foods. Check our Events page for the date and time of the pantry each month.

How we got here

The American Indian Community House’s new 9,500-square-foot community hub marks a new chapter for Indigenous community care in New York City—and a return to longstanding traditions of mutual aid, cultural connection and dignity-centered support.

For more than five decades, American Indian Community House has served Native communities across New York City and beyond while navigating repeated displacement caused by the pressures of the city’s commercial real estate market. Founded in 1969 by Native American volunteers, the organization was created to improve the circumstance of Native Americans in NYC and foster intercultural understanding through community programming, advocacy and cultural initiatives.

The opening of AICH’s new space at 234 West 39th Street creates an opportunity to rebuild programs interrupted by years of relocation and expand services for future generations. Among the organizations joining the new space is Grindingstone Collective’s Intertribal Pantry program, a partnership rooted in a shared commitment to Indigenous food sovereignty, mutual aid, and community care.

Honoring a legacy of Indigenous mutual aid

This work reconnects AICH to food and wellness programs once led by Executive Director Patricia “Trish” Tarrant’s late mother, Victoria Yellow-Wolf Tarrant.

“She saw the humanity in everybody and [understood that] you shouldn’t be ashamed of coming to the food bank or needing that resource. It was something we had and I think she took it more personally than a lot of people… She would stay extra hours or would go after work to someone’s house to drop off food. She would even do hospital visits,” Trish explains

Victoria Yellow-Wolf Tarrant worked in AICH’s Health & Wellness Department as a Community Health Representative, helping address the disproportionate rates of addiction, homelessness, hunger, diabetes and other health inequalities impacting the urban Native population in New York City, home to the largest urban Native population in the United States. Her work reflected AICH’s broader mission of serving Native people through culturally grounded care, practical support, and community connection.

Trish recalls how her mother’s work regularly extended beyond the walls of the organization.

“She would go to people’s houses… she would go to the park if there were homeless people she knew… she would bring food to them… they’d be like ‘You can’t do that Victoria, you know you’re going to get in trouble!’ and she’s like ‘well you know they need help too.’”

Through that work, AICH expanded its support systems, including monthly elders gatherings that honored Native community connection.

“Once a month they held an elders luncheon. It was called the 49ers luncheon because the life expectancy at that time was only 49.”

Tarrant says her mother understood these issues as systemic and rooted in lived experience.

“I think she wanted to pass on generosity, and you know she came from nothing, they didn’t have electricity, they didn’t have running water in the house… you know you have to be humble, and you have to respect where you come from. That was a big thing growing up, remembering where we came from.”

She also emphasized that AICH’s programs were built around dignity and accessibility.

“At the end of the day you’re just a human being and you know anybody can fall through the cracks or anything can happen.”

And, the program wasn’t just for Natives. “It was open to anybody.”

Building for the next generation

Trish’s connection to AICH began in childhood through the organization’s youth council, which she joined when she was 11.

“My daughter has a lot to do with it,” Trish says. “I think just having a space for her and the next generation to get along. I want her to have a place.”

She recalls attending youth council meetings weekly with her siblings and beginning to work at AICH on weekends and after school at age 14. She remembers how being in that space meant being seen as Indigenous in a way that did not require explanation, defense or performance.

Those memories continue to shape her leadership, particularly her commitment to supporting youth programs and creating spaces where Indigenous young people can feel safe and recognized. She described wanting to step into the role of an auntie for the next generation by helping create “a space where you can exhale, where you are recognized, where you were not being made fun of, or treated as a curiosity, or asked to shrink the parts of yourself that are sacred.” She added that her daughter now attends youth council meetings as well, “moving through that same doorway into community.”

After working at AICH full time from 2006 to 2017, Trish returned to the organization following the deaths of her parents in 2020.

“In 2021 they asked me if I want to be a consultant at AICH.”

As leadership responsibilities grew, she was encouraged by her mentor Benji to pursue the executive director role.

“He asked me if I wanted the position,” despite her response, “I don’t think I’m ready for it.”

Trish ultimately decided to step into leadership because of her lifelong connection to the organization and the opportunity to help shape its future. Through Benji’s support as co-director, she knew she was ready to take the helm.

Under Trish’s leadership, AICH is working to restore and expand programs that once defined the organization.

“We used to have a gift shop and a gallery, and we used to have the food bank and I want to try to bring some of those aspects back.”

She said the organization’s future also depends on collaboration, culturally rooted programming and investment in youth.

“I am from this community, I was born and raised here and I know what it is like to be an urban native out here.”

The organization’s expansion includes both the new Manhattan center and newly acquired land in upstate New York, creating opportunities for broader community programming, cultural initiatives and partnerships. For decades, AICH has also served as a haven and launch pad for Native artists and performers, helping make space for Indigenous cultural work in the city even while the organization itself faced displacement.

A partnership rooted in shared values

For Grinding Stone Collective, joining AICH’s new space reflects a shared vision of Indigenous mutual aid and community-centered food support.

Grinding Stone Collective is a grassroots 501(c)(3) nonprofit dedicated to revitalizing traditional foodways and ecological knowledge through community-driven education, mutual aid and land stewardship programs. The organization works to strengthen Indigenous food sovereignty by reconnecting urban and rural Native communities to ancestral food systems, land-based practices and one another while creating opportunities for Indigenous people to share their stories, values and history with the larger intertribal community and allies.

GSC founder Brooke Rodriguez described the partnership as a continuation of the work Victoria Yellow-Wolf Tarrant helped build decades earlier. “We’re bringing it back full circle. I know it’s through a partnership this time, but it’s kind of bringing back it’s like going full circle and mending things.”

As AICH begins this next chapter, Trish says one of her priorities is restoring the organization’s role as an accessible, everyday gathering place for Native community members after several years of operating seasonally on Governors Island, where cultural programming continued but day-to-day services were limited.

“One of the things I want to start back up is being a drop-in center.”

“I think that’s the biggest thing is being a drop-in center again, being more open to everybody.”

She also emphasized the importance of sustained grassroots support.

“It’s the small donors that make the biggest impact because they continuously give.”

Together, AICH and GSC hope the partnership will continue a legacy of Indigenous-led care rooted in dignity, reciprocity and long-term community support—the same principles Victoria Yellow-Wolf Tarrant helped build through her work and that Trish now carries forward through leadership shaped by lived experience, collaboration and community care.