By Valerie Richardson
December 20, 2007
Agnes Running Enemy, 78, who lives on the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Indian Reservation in South Dakota, has received groceries and other essentials through the Adopt a Lakota Family program. (Richard Boyden/Special to The Washington Times)
The plumbing in Arlette Loud Hawk’s small home on the Pine Ridge Reservation hasn”t worked in more than three years. Her furnace broke four years ago, but she doesn’t have the money to fix either.
That could soon change,now that the 48-year-old Sioux woman has been “adopted.”She is receiving fuel and food credits from several donorsthrough Adopt a Lakota Family, an innovative program designed to give direct help to the poorest of the Indian poor.
Ms. Loud Hawk would definitely qualify. She hasn’t been able to work steadily since a diagnosis of breast cancer, which now has spread to her lymph nodes. She has no car, and depends on friends and relatives for rides to Rapid City, S.D., 70 miles away, for second-stage chemotherapy.
“I’ve had a lot of help with groceries already, which is really helpful because I’m dependent on the reservation,” said Ms. Loud Hawk, who lives with two of her five children and three grandchildren.
Adopt a Lakota Family is the brainchild of Richard Boyden, a former Kansas City, Mo., radio talk-show host who now works full time to alleviate what he describes as the “Third World poverty” on Sioux reservations in North and South Dakota.
His charity, Operation Morning Star, pairs churches, businesses and individual donors with needy Lakota or Sioux families and senior citizens. Donors have the option of sending checks to the charity or directly to power companies and grocery stores in the family’s name. All donations to Operation Morning Star, a nonprofit, are tax-deductible.
“We’re unlike the Red Cross or Salvation Army where you send them money and it’s redistributed to various causes,” Mr. Boyden said. “You say you want to adopt a family and help with utility bills, foods, school supplies, and we connect you with a family. Then you can send money directly to the grocery store or utility company.”
Some donors send their adopted families gift cards to Wal-Mart, which operates stores near most of the reservations. Others send letters and Christmas gifts to the family’s children.
The process helps reduce worries about whether the money is used for its intended purpose. “People are leery of charities,” said Mr. Boyden. “This way you know where your money’s going.”
It would be difficult to find a more desperate group of Americans than the North and South Dakota Sioux. The unemployment rate tops 80 percent and most residents live below the poverty level, with the average annual income on the reservation less than $4,000.
The casino-driven economic boom enjoyed by some tribes has bypassed the Sioux, whose remote location puts them beyond the reach of most tourist traffic. The result is a host of social ills ranging from suicide and substance abuse to crime and homelessness.
At the heart of the plight is the lack of decent housing. Most Sioux live in dilapidated trailers and creaky federally built houses, cramming as many as 20 persons into single-family structures. Many homes are infested with black mold, which may be contributing to high disease rates.
“The need for homes affects just about everything else,” said John Yellow Bird Steele, president of the Oglala Sioux tribe at Pine Ridge, who testified before the Senate Indian Affairs Committee on the housing crisis in March. “You have two to four different families living in one home. It means the kids don’t have a place to study and there’s conflict between people who have to live together.”
Randy Stires, president of Victorian Sales in Fenton, Mo., donated 23 wood-burning stoves last year after seeing photos of the deplorable living conditions on the Operation Morning Star Web site, www.operationmorningstar.org, where contact and donation information are available.
“It’s cold here in Missouri, but in the Dakotas it’s cold-cold, and I look at those houses and say, ‘How are they staying warm?’ ” said Mr. Stires, who is giving another 27 stoves this year.
Operation Morning Star has proposed a long-term solution in the form of modular geodesic dome homes. For as little as $15,000, the charity can purchase the kits from their designer, Bob Conroy, and use tribal labor to build them.
The homes are airtight and use radiant-floor heating, which is more efficient and less expensive than propane or gas, said Mr. Conroy. But $15,000 is big money on these reservations, and Operation Morning Star doesn’t have any deep-pocket donors.
Part of that lies with Sioux pride. “I find it difficult to say, ‘We need help,’ ” said Mr. Steele. “We don’t want to appear pitiful. We make do.”
It’s also a result of widespread stereotypes, Mr. Boyden said. “Indian Country is either portrayed in a negative light or a diversionary light, like, ‘Oh, they’ve got casinos now. They’ve got the government.’ “
“You have all these charities going to Africa and Mexico,” he said, “but people forget about what’s happening in their own back yard.”