Our Ancestors' Garden (OAG) is a free 12-week spiritual wellness cohort for caregivers and children ages 3–12, rooted in Black Liberation Theology, Ecowomanist, and Afro-Indigenous traditions and hosted by Root Wellness Center in the Raleigh-Durham Triangle area. This program helps caregivers develop the skills, tools, knowledge, support and inspiration necessary to share an inclusive, justice-centered, trauma-informed, culturally responsive and emotionally intelligent, earth honoring faith with their children while building community with other families doing the same. 

• A bi-monthly curated family learning and bonding experience - just show up, and we’ll handle the rest 

• Caregiver coaching and education that helps you support your child’s mental, physical, spiritual, and social development 

• Access to an extensive faith formation curriculum covering justice-centered, earth honoring faith principles, activities, child development education and cultural rituals for families to practice at home.  

• Tools to support your wellness throughout your caregiving journey 

• An opportunity to build and sustain your village in an intentional way 

• One on one parent coaching via office hours 

Sessions will be held twice a month on Sundays, 3-5 p.m. at Pullen Memorial Baptist Church. The dates are as follows: 

• August 9, 2026 – Orientation  

• August 30, 2026 

• September 20, 2026 

• October 4, 2026 

• October 18, 2026 

• November 1, 2026 

• November 15, 2026  

• December 6, 2026 – this session will serve as an end of cohort celebration 

Each session will include: 

• Family time involving music, teaching, and other activities 

• A caregiver breakout session focused on providing caregivers with support around the OAG curriculum 

• A family meal where caregivers and children eat together in community 

This cohort is open to all caregivers with Black children including, but not limited to, LGBTQIA+ families, those with alternative family structures, families who have experienced or are experiencing incarceration, and those suffering from, or trying to make sense of the religious trauma they’ve experienced throughout their life.  
 

The only three requirements for participation are: 

1. Your child is Black, even if you are not. 

2. You are a caregiver to a child (or children) who are between the ages of 3 and 12.  

3. You reside in the Raleigh, Durham area or are willing to meet in person with other cohort participants in the Raleigh, Durham area twice a month.  

Yes. Please note any allergies for our team in your application. 

Several child development specialists, therapists, and wellness coaches from the Raleigh Durham community will be involved in working with you and your kid(s). Meet the leadership team below.  

Shaunta’ Jones, Program Co-Director 

Shaunta’ is a public health and early childhood professional that specializes in guiding families through the earliest stages of parenthood. With more than 15 years of experience, her work spans program leadership, coaching, and direct care, with a strong focus on helping families and early childhood providers create environments where children can thrive. Serving as one of our principle curriculum designers, Shaunta will be managing the 

AW Sheilds, Program Co-Director  

AW is a psychotherapist, community organizer, ordained clergywoman in the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) and a spiritual herbalist. As an ordained clergywoman, she created one of the nation’s first denomination-wide mental health programs as the Mental Health Initiative Manager of the National Benevolent Association (NBA), and one of the nation's first spiritually integrated residential mental health treatment programs at the Tennyson Center for Children in Denver, Colorado, where she served as both chaplain to staff and child and family therapist on the clinical team. 

Pierce Freelon, Children’s Music Director  

Pierce is a GRAMMY®-nominated recording artist, author, and Afrofuturist creator known for his children’s album AnceStars, Black to the Future and Black Boy Glow, which have been featured on Today Show, NPR, and Billboard.  

He has written songs for PBS Kids series Alma’s Way and Work It Out Wombats! and is the co-creator and star of Jamming on the Job, PBS Kids’ first original podcast. In 2024, Pierce and his wife Kathryn founded Coco Fro, a dairy-free freeze-dried ice cream company inspired by space travel and joyful family experiences. Together, his creative projects form an expanding universe of Afrofuturist storytelling across music, food, and media. He’s passionate at helping kids discover their internal power, light, and genius through these mediums.  

Estee Nena Dillard, Afro-Indigenous Ritualist  

Estee’s work discovers the ways theological formation, spiritual care, and ritual transform wellness, especially for people from the African Diaspora. She was licensed and ordained in the gospel ministry at Rize Community Church where she continues to serve as the Minister of Ritual and Spiritual Formation. Estee also earned a Master of Divinity with Graduate Certificates in Black Church Studies and Faith/Public Health Collaborative from Candler School of Theology at Emory University. Through work in the West African Orisa Tradition and the Nation of Ndugu and Nzingha, she studies and curates African ancestral traditions. a 

Toqui Kennedy, Child Mental Health Specialist  

Toqui is a Licensed Psychologist, certified EMDR therapy provider, and founder of NC Family & Parent Consultants (NCFPC), where she has worked for more than two decades. NCFPC provides solution focused counseling and educational support to children and families. Prior to founding NCFPC, she served as a Psychologist, Parent Consultant, and Educator for 10 years with Project Enlightenment, a prevention and intervention organization in Wake County.  

Her work has allowed her to support caregivers in a variety of areas, including developing effective discipline plans, reducing child stress in situations of divorce/separation, and anger management. She has supported individuals and families in finding practical strategies for anxiety, ADHD, depression and life stressors. 

Our Ancestors's Garden Curriculum was intentionally crafted by over 20 Black scholars, theologians, family therapists, educators, and environmental scientists dedicating to developing a justice-centered, earth honoring faith formation curriculum parents can use at home. The planning team included scholars from top universities across the nation like Harvard and Wake Forest University, theologians, educators, and caregivers with children in our target age range of 3-12 years old. 

The curriculum consists of 6 wisdom seeds divided into two cohort seasons (Fall and Spring), and three age groups: 3-5, 6-8, and 9-12. Within each group, there will be six main components: a caregiver letter, a devotion, an age-specific lesson plan, and three supplemental health sections featuring child development psychoeducation, environmental and climate justice insights, and spiritual practices from the Black Diaspora.

OAG is a program within the Root Wellness Center, a North Carolina health and healing justice hub working to counter the psychological impacts of systemic trauma and discrimination on health by: 

• Designing non-carceral, community healing interventions 

• Building trauma-responsive community care programs 

• Training community leaders in Ecowomanist community care strategies and values   

Through a unique combination of design, evaluation, and training in intergenerational community health and wellness strategies, RWC is redefining how marginalized communities access healthcare by replacing traditional carceral care solutions with community-rooted, community-shaped, and community-led ecosystems of care. 

RWC was founded in 2022 by AW Shields, an ecowomanist abolitionist, mental health equity innovator, ordained clergywoman and healing justice practitioner with 15 years of experience in the mental health field. 

At its core, this program is for caregivers of Black children, ages 3-12 wanting to teach their children earth-honoring values rooted in the context of Black spirituality and Afro-Indigenous traditions. Attention is given to the complexity of Black spirituality in the U.S. by offering both Black Christian sacred text, ideology and culture with Afro- Indigenous wisdoms, culture, cosmology and ritual. Caregivers will ultimately choose what they share with their children, but the curriculum and family faith formation session will emphasis faith principles that prioritize the health, healing and wholeness of the environment and the health, healing and actualize full humanity and liberation of Black people. 

We created this program because we believe: 

• It's important for child formation to happen in communal settings  

• Participation in communal rituals (singing, laughing, praying, sharing a meal) is powerful for child development. 

• It’s necessary to provide tools, space to process and support for caregivers