Primatologist Jane Goodall thinks the spring blizzard last year in the northern Black Hills was an alignment of greater forces.

She and a handful of other guests were trapped in Spearfish Canyon Lodge for a couple of days, forcing the cancellation of her speech at Black Hills State University.

The weather looks good for Goodall's speech in Rapid City tonight, but Goodall doesn't call last year's snowstorm bad weather. Conversations in the lodge led to planting nine community gardens on the Pine Ridge Reservation this past summer.

"We had exactly the people we needed," Goodall said.

Two of them were Jason Schoch, a full-time employee of Goodall's foundation, and Patricia Hammond of Martin, who works as a substitute teacher in Kyle on the reservation.

Schoch and Hammond, who had never met, were at the lodge to talk with Goodall. In the end, they spent hours talking to each other, planning how to bring Goodall's Roots & Shoots program to Pine Ridge.

Goodall started Roots & Shoots 12 years ago in Tanzania, as an offshoot of the Jane Goodall Institute. The program's premise is that children can learn about "ethical agriculture" and community building through projects such as community gardens.

Roots & Shoots has since expanded to 59 countries, and more than 100,000 children have participated in its programs.

Last year, Schoch moved to Martin, and he and Hammond began building community gardens under the auspices of Roots & Shoots. There are four gardens in Kyle. The others are at Potato Creek, Wanblee and Martin.

More than 200 kids on Pine Ridge Reservation participated in the community gardens last summer, Schoch said. The grew peppers, squash, tomatoes and other vegetables - all while learning about about the land and their own culture and language. Hammond led the teaching, with help from local elders.

The gardens also produced food for four farmers markets at Kyle and a food giveaway for elders in Pine Ridge. Residents in each community also picked their own vegetables.

The gardens were not without problems. Growing corn proved difficult, Schoch said, and last summer there was some vandalism.

But Roots & Shoots already is planning how to expand on Pine Ridge.

Goodall spent all day Monday on the Pine Ridge Reservation, speaking to children and community leaders about expanding Roots & Shoots and starting other programs, including a suicide-prevention program that has been successful on other reservations.

Goodall is a naturalist who is best known for her work with chimpanzees.

"We need the natural world," she said Monday.

We also need each other, she said. She hopes Roots & Shoots on the reservation will come to mean as much to Pine Ridge kids as it did to the young Tanzanian who told her, "What I love best about Roots & Shoots is that wherever I go in the world, even if I know nobody, if I find a group of Roots & Shoots, I know I've found my family."

Goodall, who turned 73 in April, travels 300 days a year delivering that message.

Contact Bill Harlan at 394-8424 or at bill.harlan@rapidcityjournal.com