We here at the Isabel Okiciyap in Isabel, SD have been trying hard to get more grants to keep us functioning. BUT until the next one comes in it would be great to get some help to keep us afloat in order to keep the pantry open and stocked with food and winter stuff, including funds to keep the people warm!
I am currently trying to get the website updated but i do not have access to it. The lady that does it for us has been apparently busy busy! So i will get that updated ASAP because we need to put our actual Board Members up on the site as well.
Hopefully we will have a grant soon and our employees can get back to work and keep the community warm and fed and keep the office running!
Thank You All
Emily Penick - (i was the program director until the grant ran out, now I'm back to volunteering, and i was the Chairwoman prior to being the director and prior to that i was the secretary since 2010 when Georgia Little Shield started this organization)
I guess i shouldn't have tried to do a diary without talking to betson08 first. She's been helping us with diaries and fundraising, but lately no one wants to. We've been having a hard time at the Okiciyap because of limitations on the grant we received and things haven't gone the way we were told it would.
I am removing the fundraising link because i feel that we have jumped the gun, again, the chairwoman and i were just trying to get us some funding to pay bills and buy food for the pantry. We've gone from serving 50 families to serving around 400 families (800 + individuals) on the Cheyenne River Reservation. We were doing heating assistance for our local natives living in Isabel and it helped a lot last year! But again, this year is harder and different because we do not have funding for that type of assistance.
In our community we have Tribal Members from both Cheyenne River and our neighboring tribe to the north, Standing Rock, who live and work here. The majority of the Standing Rock members live in the Cheyenne River Housing homes and have done so for MANY year. They are a large part of this community. But our grant would not allow us to assist these people because they were not Cheyenne River members. Standing Rock will not help them because they live on Cheyenne River. I think this is wrong. We are trying to help all our natives, not just a few. We also get a lot of non-native elderly that come to the pantry because they are on fixed incomes and we help them too because we know they need it. The grant we had wouldn't allow us to help them either with the grant funding. Regardless, we helped them anyway, mainly because we felt it was the right thing to do. You shouldn't have to say "no, you cant have any of this food or assistance because you're not from this tribe." It's not right.
I apologize for posting this before i spoke to the right people. Me and my Chairwoman were just trying to get some help. Thanks.
Emily Penick
