Woodland Indian Art Gains Capacity & Elevates “Status”

As a cultural asset for Native communities, art has been an integral part of sustaining Native nations, their cultures, their languages and their traditional beliefs, thereby shaping community and family ties and cultural pride. First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) believes the continuing development of Native American art is an indispensable component of Native community economic development and the retention of Native cultures.

In 2014, First Nations launched the Native Arts Capacity Building Initiative (NACBI) to significantly increase the organizational, managerial and programmatic capacity of Native organizations and tribal government art programs. NACBI provides direct grants, technical assistance and training to Native organizations and tribal government art programs so they can continue to carry out essential work for Native American arts and artists.

NACBI is supported by the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation along with contributions from tribal, corporate and individual supporters. In October 2014, First Nations awarded six $30,000 grants to Native art capacity programs in Minnesota, Wisconsin, North Dakota and South Dakota.

Woodland Indian Art, Inc. (WIA), a community organization located on the Oneida Tribe of Indians of Wisconsin’s reservation, is one of six inaugural grantees. WIA promotes and educates the public about the unique artistic styles of Native Americans in the upper midwest and northeastern regions of the United States.

For eight years, WIA has existed as a volunteer-driven organization, with no full-time employees on its staff. Since there was no full-time management staff, it was often difficult to coordinate activities of volunteers and obtain much-needed funds for volunteer activities. Even so, WIA volunteers continued to grow the organization and move forward.

NACBI has enabled WIA to formalize its organization, achieve 501(c)(3) status and launch new marketing and fundraising campaigns to increase revenue to support and expand WIA’s activities. “We know that a diversity of funding is the key to becoming a sustainable organization,” said WIA Board President Rae Skenadore.

Achieving 501(c)(3) status has enabled WIA to diversify and expand its funding base. For example, the new status has enabled it to request funding from the Oneida Community Fund. WIA has leveraged those funds by submitting a proposal that doubled Oneida’s donation with matching funds from Wisconsin Public Radio.

These funds allowed WIA to reach its target market and increase awareness of its upcoming event: The 2015 Woodland Indian Art Show & Market. WIA secured more than $10,000 in promotion and marketing services to help increase awareness of the event.

During the past six months, WIA has also developed a new fundraising campaign to increase its presence through mailings, social media and email marketing. New board members and interns from the College of Menominee Nation led the campaign. “By participating in this campaign, a whole new generation is learning how to participate in and be successful in the Native nonprofit sector,” noted Skenadore.

The success of this campaign has allowed WIA to expand the Woodland Indian Art Show & Market from a small event to a large-scale festival that includes an art competition with performing artists, classes and demonstrations. The newly expanded festival will be held June 12-14 at the Radisson Hotel & Conference Center in Green Bay, Wisconsin.

As an organization that is approaching its ninth annual event, WIA’s current success reiterates the importance of consistent funding and institutional support for Native American arts and artists. “NACBI has allowed us to move one more step forward in achieving our vision of becoming a trusted, internationally-recognized organization,” said WIA Board Treasurer Loretta Webster. “It has helped jolt us to the next level.”

By Sarah Hernandez, First Nations Program Coordinator

Anti-Hunger Initiatives Help Older Native Americans

L to R are Harley Coriz of Santo Domingo, Maggie Biscarr of AARP Foundation, and George Toya of Nambe

In Indian Country, finding a restaurant is easy – if you want to eat at a fast-food chain that serves cheap, fattening meals. Native American cuisine now typically means fry bread, a disk of dough deep-fried in oil or lard. Few stores sell fresh produce on reservations. And, perhaps surprisingly, farmers’ markets are practically impossible to find.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture deems most reservations “food deserts” — low-income areas where many people lack access to nutritional foods. According to the Center for Rural Health, about 6 in 10 Native Americans age 55 and older survive on between $5,000 and $10,000 a year. The brutal one-two punch of rampant poverty and low-quality food hits tribal elders particularly hard. A 2013 study by First Nations Development Institute (First Nations) found that American Indian seniors “now suffer from higher rates of congestive heart failure, high blood pressure, diabetes and stroke than the general population age 55 and older.”

To help end chronic hunger among older Native Americans, AARP Foundation has awarded $438,000 to First Nations Development Institute since 2012. The nonprofit based in Longmont, Colorado, in turn provided grants, training and technical assistance to several innovative programs that aim to improve nutrition for American Indian seniors while fostering community. “First Nations does a really good job finding tribes that have the capacity and the need, and that’s a fine line,” says Maggie Biscarr, program manager for AARP Foundation’s Hunger Impact area. “You have to work with groups that really need it — and have some level of capacity to deliver.”

First Nations recently awarded $25,000 sub-grants to four tribes in Arizona, New Mexico, North Dakota and Wisconsin for anti-hunger initiatives. The second round of funding follows a $100,000 grant distributed in 2012 for four innovative projects, including the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma’s Healthy Pork initiative; the Traditional Food Systems Revitalization Project of the Santo Domingo Pueblo in New Mexico; and the Pueblo of Nambe’s Community Farm, also in New Mexico.

“We are pleased to again support an organization that has a proven record in hunger relief, and look forward to watching the new programs grow in impact for Native American elders,” says AARP Foundation President Lisa Marsh Ryerson.

Amos Hinton at Ponca

Amos Hinton from the Ponca Tribe

Amos Hinton, director of agriculture for the Ponca Tribe, reports that his program has bred, processed and distributed more than 6,000 pounds of free-range pork since 2012. “Commercial agriculture has gone so far away from the way animals were intended to be raised and grain was meant to be grown,” says Amos, who frets that many of his neighbors subsisted on “low-end processed lunch meats from cans” if they could afford meat at all. When Amos delivered locally raised, hormone-free pork to an elderly woman shortly after launching his project, he remembers being told, I’m so glad to see you, because I didn’t know how we were going to eat for the rest of the week. “That bothered me — really, really bothered me,” admits Amos, who is in the process of breeding four more pigs.

The AARP Foundation grant enabled the Pueblo of Nambe to buy a second-hand tractor, tools, and seeds, and to pay for some labor to build a 20-by-40-foot hoop house. The structure, made of flexible plastic over a wood frame, harnesses solar radiation to extend the growing season. Before the hoop house was built, George Toya, the Pueblo’s farm manager, estimated that his growing season started in May and ended in late September. After completion, the season doubled and now lasts from late February until November. The farm produces lettuce, spinach, beets and carrots, as well as the venerated chili pepper. “Chilies are everything here,” notes George, who donates much of the harvest to the community’s senior center.

When George was growing up, he remembers cutting wheat by hand with a sickle along with his father, grandfather and many neighbors: “When one field ripened and was ready to cut, [local] farmers came over and helped.” His family gladly returned the favor. “The work went really quick,” says George, who believes Nambe’s community farm has revived a communal spirit. “It’s starting to come back again.”

Harley inside the Santo Domingo greenhouse

The Pueblo of Santo Domino’s Traditional Food Systems Revitalization Project grows not only traditional crops but also relationships, says Harley Coriz, who oversees the local senior center. The grant they received enabled the tribe to build a greenhouse, where vegetables for seniors grow during winter. The venture connects tribal elders and youth who plant and harvest corn, melons and tomatoes, and other fruits and vegetables. “The seniors teach youths the names of plants in the native tongue,” says Harley, who points out that the program yields an unexpected benefit: empowering women volunteers. “Mainly males did the farming, so a lot of the older ladies have never planted before and they were really enthused,” he notes.

“Everything is centered around agriculture in our society,” Harley continues. “We plant as a community, we harvest as a community and — they tell us growing up — life begins with putting seeds into the ground.”

This article, by David Wallis, was written and published by AARP Foundation, Bob Somerville, editor. It is reprinted here with permission from AARP Foundation’s Drive to End Hunger nationwide campaign.