Summer's end is here, and it's going to be cold at Pine Ridge soon.

[Lyric]

Another DU'er reminded me of this, so I thought that perhaps now would be a good time to bring it up.

Poverty at the Pine Ridge Lakota reservation remains at heartbreaking levels, and while summer weather offers a small respite, winter is approaching soon. Already-sparse gardens will stop producing, homes and shelters will need weatherization, and the dire need for HEAT will become a matter of life and death for the people living in this community. Sadly, we tend to wait until people have already died before we are motivated to offer help.

This year, let's not wait until lives have already been lost. The people of Pine Ridge need our help, and they need it desperately. There are thousands of elderly people, sick people, and small children who will be at risk of freezing to death if they don't get some help with the cost of heating their homes. They also need food, warm clothes, and other things that the local advocacy organizations CAN supply...provided that they have the money to purchase those things.

I know many of us are suffering, but there are very few of us who are at risk of freezing or starving to death. The need is desperate, and there is no better time to offer help than BEFORE people have died. This is literally the poorest area in the entire country. Need is great everywhere these days...but there is no doubt, it is greatest here.

Please consider making a donation to the Friends of Pine Ridge. They are a fantastic nonprofit organization that uses donations to buy heating oil, wood, electricity, winter clothes, and other desperately-needed services and goods for the people of the Pine Ridge reservation. Even a small donation can make a difference. And tell a friend or two, if you can. With enough help, 2010 can be the year that nobody has to die of poverty at Pine Ridge.

Go here for more information and to donate online: http://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/difference/

You can also donate directly to the heating assistance fund by sending a check or money order here:

OST Energy/Heating Assistance Fund
Attn.: OST Treasurer
P.O. Box 2070
Pine Ridge, SD 57770

Thank you all so much.

:grouphug:

[Count Olaf]

1. Thank you for the reminder

:kick:

[auntAgonist]

2. K&R

:applause:

:loveya:

[Lyric]

3. ...

:hug:

[nofurylike]

4. k&r thank you so much for posting this, Lyric. nt

[EFerrari]

5. K&R

[KamaAina]

6. Isn't there something productive they can do with their tribal status besides opening a casino?

You don't see any of the Mashantucket Pequot (Foxwoods in CT) freezing to death anymore. I've often wondered if there might be other things tribal nations could do to make money, like an alternative medicine clinic beyond the reach of the FDA. "Give me a log, and I stay warm for a night..."

[coffeenap]

7. I also wonder--wind farm? Solar panel array?

Does anyone know if there is any way for anyone off the reservation to help get this done? This level of poverty should make all Americans feel shame.

[Lyric]

8. I think that there are bureaucratic, financial, and physical obstacles

Connecticut is a lot kinder to their First People than South Dakota is, sadly. It's hard to open a business that draws enough money to make a difference when your people are so desperately poor that they have no decent clothes, education, or building supplies. The land at Pine Ridge is largely barren and crime is high thanks to the severe poverty levels. Unless some outside investor decides to front them the resources, skilled labor, and facilities, it would be awfully hard for them to get out of the poverty hole all on their own.

Bootstraps don't work when you don't have any boots. :(

[KamaAina]

9. It almost sounds like an NGO needs to go in there as though it were a poor country like Haiti

which, in a sense, it is. :(

[pitohui]

13. it is a poor country like haiti, life expectancy is around age 42 or so

we're talking stone age life expectancy don't get me started

i have heard a theory that "they" would like all natives to abandon the area because there's gold but if there's gold...at some point where is it? j'burg south africa looks like new york city compared to pine ridge, the feds may believe the gold is there but honestly is it economic? at some point, why not just let these folks have the fucking gold? something?

[KamaAina]

15. At $1300 an ounce, it just might be economic.

Let's not have a repeat of the Trail of Tears survivors being run off their new land in Oklahoma the minute we palefaces struck oil. :grr:

[pitohui]

31. gold from TAILINGS is economic at $800 an ounce

per friends in j'burg

i don't know what to think abt the way folks have been treated at pine ridge but i don't think the feds believe there is gold there, they were treating these folks like shit back in the peltier days when gold was nothing an ounce...

i hope they do strike gold/oil/t rexes & the folks living there finally get some $ but we can't wait for that

[zalinda]

40. One man has found out that hemp will grow there

but, the problem is that the government won't let him grow it. One of the very few crops that will grow in the area, and they are prohibited from growing it.

I have a box packed and ready to go with school supplies, sweaters and an infant's snowsuit. I will be starting my annual mitten making blitz, soon. Some will go to the rez and some to different places here in Syracuse.

As far as sending you "stuff" in the mail. I've gotten thank you notes, and I think one newsletter, and that's it, in about 2 years of giving.

Check out their needs page too. If you have a business that could donate some of the needed items, I'm pretty sure you could get a tax write off. If you can't get a write off, at least you'd know that you are helping some of the less fortunate. They do have a lot of storage space, so don't let the concern of lack of space deter you.

zalinda

[proud2BlibKansan]

18. It's the worst poverty I have ever seen anywhere in the US

Families live in abandoned cars. Others are living in makeshift shelters made of trash, like oil barrels and parts of cars. It's incredibly heart breaking.

Thanks so much for this reminder thread.

[proud2BlibKansan]

16. Foxwoods is the largest casino in the world

I believe it's the exception rather than a model other Native Americans can follow.

[KamaAina]

17. Which is precisely why I'd like to explore other ways for tribal nations to profit from sovereignty

rather than just casinos.

Edit: One tribal nation in the Southwest offered to allow nuclear waste to be dumped on its reservation. While creative, that is NOT what I had in mind!

[proud2BlibKansan]

19. I agree

But if they want to build a casino, I see no reason to stop them.

It's interesting. Some of these groups build huge elaborate casino hotels like Mandigo Sun(?) and Foxwoods in CT while the casino in SD nearest Wounded Knee is basically a big tent, obviously built on the cheap.

[KamaAina]

22. Mohegan Sun and Foxwoods are in the heavily populated Northeast

Mohegan Sun also brought in outside investors (the "Sun" is for the infamous Sun City in South Africa!), as well as purchasing land and officially declaring it to be their "reservation".

There's nowhere enough population anywhere near Pine Ridge to support something like that. Hence, the quest for some other way to utilize tribal sovereignty. The Seneca Nation and others in NY State have had success selling tax-free tobacco products, for instance.

[Gaedel]

43. One problem

Other reservations make mone from tax free cigarettes or a casino. The problem here is there are no customers. To get to this reservation, you go to the end of the world, turn left and it is another three hundred miles.

[One Voice]

10. K&R

Could you post this weekly to keep reminding us?
thank you!

[Lyric]

11. kicking for the people of Pine Ridge

:kick:

[pitohui]

12. lets get this bumped!

ridiculous that the suffering at pine ridge goes on and on ... this country needs to be better than this, we CAN be better than this...

[auntAgonist]

14. keeping this kicked ..

[nofurylike]

20. kick

[nofurylike]

21. kick. this is vitally important! nt

[sad sally]

23. Is the Lakota St. Joseph Indian School in Chamberlain SD close to

Pine Ridge? Have made small regular contributions to it, but am bothered by the amount of "free" stuff they send in the mail once you're on their mailing list. thanks for letting me know if I'm contributing to the wrong Lakotas.

[Lyric]

24. No, it's not close to Pine Ridge.

I don't know anything about "wrong Lakotas", but to answer your question--no, that school is not on the Pine Ridge reservation, or even anywhere near it. It's on the other side of the state.

[sad sally]

26. Thank you, and I didn't mean there are wrong Lakotas (versus right ones)

just meant maybe I'm contributing to the wrong organization - sorry it came out sounding stupid.

[Fire1]

25. K&R

[nofurylike]

27. kick

[nofurylike]

28. kick

[nofurylike]

29. kick

[nofurylike]

30. kick

[Lyric]

32. Thank you for kicking this.

:hug:

[nofurylike]

33. thank you. and thank *you* for posting this, Lyric. it is more

important and more urgent than people can imagine, unfortunately.

thank you so.

:hug:


peace and solidarity

[nofurylike]

34. kick. please, folks, go to the site linked in the OP. there is so

much difference we can each make.

here is the link again:

http://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/difference/


peace

[nofurylike]

35. find out what winter there is like. you will be moved to take any

action you are able to.

do a search on Pine Ridge Reservation+starving.....
it is indecent - all the more so of this greedy, overstuffed, wasteful country....


please do anything you possibly can.


peace

[nofurylike]

36. kick. please also spread word to others who might wish to make

a difference.


peace

[nofurylike]

37. and please keep this kicked so all can read it. i am sure more

would act if they knew.


peace

[nofurylike]

38. kick

[nofurylike]

39. kick. back tomorrow. please keep kicked and spread word! nt

[uppityperson]

41. kick for Lakotas and to mark to kick later.

[laylah]

42. Kick! nt

[Maru Kitteh]

44. Thanks for posting this thread. Kick.

[uppityperson]

45. I remember a friend who lived with her gram in an uninsulated 8X8 ft shack

they had an outhouse and a tiny cook-stove in the corner. I visited in the summer and enjoyed sleeping out, wondered how they survived the freezing windy weather in the winter.

[nofurylike]

46. kick

[nofurylike]

47. kick. there are simple things we can do to make big differences. nt

[nofurylike]

48. kick. please check out the site linked in the OP. nt

[nofurylike]

49. kick. so more can read it and find ways to make a difference. nt

[nofurylike]

50. please kick this, and spread the word! nt