7 Directions of Service is an Indigenous-led group focused on environmental preservation and protecting what such groups view as sacred homelands. The group opposed the Mountain Valley Pipeline and Southgate Extension for five years, advocated for rights-of-nature laws in North Carolina, and its co-founder Crystal Cavalier-Heck co-authored bills to grant legal rights to the Haw River and Dan River while addressing watershed community impacts. ^{1 2}

Core Initiatives

7 Directions of Service focuses on protecting sites it deems sacred, advocating “rights of nature” laws to protect certain natural features, and establishing centers for land, language, and culture based on the traditions of the Yesa:sahį-speaking Native American tribal groups. The group offers ongoing youth programs, rites of passage, and Yesa culture classes, while building a hub at Yesa Farms for reviving Indigenous agricultural, cultural, and leadership practices. The group connects these cultural preservations to “environmental justice” and climate-change mitigation. The group advocates “LandBack” to return land to Indigenous control, and blames “racial capitalist economies” for damaging life and relations. Campaigns include sacred-site protection, “rights of nature,” and opposition to projects like Buc-ee’s. ¹

Activists from 7 Directions of Service, the North Carolina Environmental Justice Network, and local residents protested the Mebane City Council’s approval of a Buc-ee’s gas station in North Carolina, aiming to halt construction due to its location, while calling for opposition to “environmental racism” and claiming harm to public health and wealth. 7 Directions of Service commissioned the 34-page report “Buc-ee’s Burden,” authored by journalists Lewis Raven Wallace and Sue Sturgis, which asserted that such facilities contribute to air pollution, offer low wages, and rely on public highways. ^{3  4}

Financials

7 Directions of Service was established in 2024, and financial information on the nonprofit was not yet available as of 2025. ⁵

Crystal Cavalier-Heck

As of August 2025, co-founder Crystal A. Cavalier-Keck was the executive director of 7 Directions of Service. A citizen of the Occaneechi Band of the Saponi Nation living in Mebane, North Carolina, Cavalier-Keck has experience in strategic intelligence and cybersecurity, including roles as a counterintelligence analyst with the Department of Defense at Quantico, Virginia, and as an analyst with the Department of Homeland Security. She earned a doctorate in organizational leadership from the University of Dayton, where her research examined the “social justice” aspects of missing and murdered Indigenous women linked to gas and oil pipelines. As of 2025, Cavalier-Keck was pursuing a master’s in Indigenous Peoples Law at the University of Oklahoma. ²

As of 2025, Cavalier-Keck held the role of resilient hub coordinator for the Nor Cal Resilience Network and worked as radio show host and producer for “La Onda Bajita” on KPFA. Cavalier-Keck chairs the Environmental Justice Committee for the NAACP. She participated in the 2020 fall cohort of the Sierra Club’s Gender Equity and Environment Program and the Women’s Earth Alliance’s Accelerator for Grassroots Women Environmental Leaders. ⁶

She was elected to the North Carolina Political Women’s Caucus in 2009, served as treasurer and then president of the Cumberland County Young Democrats in 2010 and 2011, chaired the YDNC Military/Veterans Caucus, worked with Operation Free on climate change national security risks and clean energy in 2011, founded and chaired the North Carolina Democratic Native American Caucus in 2019, and ran for U.S. Congress in North Carolina’s 4th District in 2022. As of 2025, she was a chapter director of the 17 Rivers American Indian Movement and an adjunct professor in social sciences at Salem College, and held positions on boards like Movement Rights and Haw River Assembly, while being a Sequoyah Fellow with the American Indian Science and Engineering Society and a lifetime member of the National Congress for American Indians. ²

1. 7 Directions of Service. “Our Story.” Accessed August 18, 2025. https://7directionsofservice.com/our-story. 
2. 7 Directions of Service. “Dr. Crystal Cavalier-Keck.” Accessed August 18, 2025. https://7directionsofservice.com/dr-crystal-cavalier-keck.
3. Wallace, Lewis Raven, and Sue Sturgis. “Buc-ee’s Opponents Still Gnawing Away at Mebane’s Coming Gas Station.” Indy Week. Accessed August 10, 2025. https://indyweek.com/news/buc-ees-opponents-still-gnawing-away-at-mebanes-coming-gas-station/. 
4. “Unveiling Buc-ee’s Burden: NCEJN’s Statement at the Mebane Press Conference.” North Carolina Environmental Justice Network. Accessed August 10, 2025. https://ncejn.org/unveiling-buc-ees-burden-ncejns-statement-at-the-mebane-press-conference/. 
5. ProPublica. “7 Directions Of Service Inc.” Nonprofit Explorer. Accessed August 18, 2025. https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/331777226. 
6. Women’s Earth Alliance. “Crystal Cavalier-Keck.” Accessed August 18, 2025. https://leaders.womensearthalliance.org/leader/crystal-cavalier-keck/.