Nueta Hidatsa Sahnish College (NHSC) in North Dakota is a tribal college chartered by the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara (MHA) Nation to serve as the agency responsible for higher education on the Fort Berthold Indian Reservation in order to train tribal members and retain tribal cultures. With the preservation and revitalization of tribal culture as a foundation of the institution, NHSC has become a place where tribal members and others gift traditional seeds for protection and distribution to other tribal members. In 2022, NHSC partnered with Northern Great Plains Research Laboratory, part of the USDA's Agricultural Research Service (ARS), to work toward seed security for the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Nation. The project is philosophically grounded in traditional ecological knowledge (TEK) depicted in the Mandan Hidatsa Arikara Earthlodge Model of Seed Relationships. The model is intended to guide the work of the MHA people toward the security and protection of seed relatives; the model is represented by the traditional domicile of the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara tribes. All three tribes share long histories of gardening, which contribute to their unification as one nation, the Three Affiliated Tribes.