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Archives for December 2020

2020: THE YEAR IN REVIEW

December 28, 2020 by Mitakuye Foundation Leave a Comment

2020 has been unprecedented on every level. After the pandemic hit and we began to realize the enormity of the situation – we thought we would have to cancel most of our programming for kids. But after some creative problem solving and innovation – 2020 has turned out to be one of our biggest years ever.

At the beginning of the year we had hit the ground running and started off the year with a Creators Club Awards Program and School Tour for our Winter contest winners:

We had record breaking numbers of entries for all of our Art Contests:

We also had the opportunity to continue the work we have started with the Elder’s Project by hosting our Advisor Richard Moves Camp – Lakota spiritual leader, teacher and historian, to Los Angeles to do a presentation at UCLA. The Elders Project focuses on celebrating and preserving the wisdom and knowledge of Lakota Elders and creates inter-generational opportunities and programming for youth to learn from elders and participate in archiving their knowledge.

  • Joseph Marshall lll
  • Photo Credit Amanda War Bonnett
  • Verola Spider

Elders and traditional knowledge form the backbone of the educational opportunities we create for kids.

  • Kevin Locke
  • J.T. Shinning OneSide
  • Duane Reddest

When the pandemic hit – we were determined to keep the art happening for our summer programs, but we knew we would have to make some drastic changes since in-person learning was not an option. So we shifted our Hoye Wayelo Summer Arts Academy online and expanded our Summer Arts Program to support over 100 kids with art supplies and lunches for a community kids program, and sent out over 300 Art Kits, snack bags, and Creativity Guides to kids in Pine Ridge and Rosebud, for our Summer Art Challenge

See more on The Summer Arts Academy Here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/summer-arts-2020-2/

See Summer Behind The Scenes Here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/summer-2020-behind-the-scenes/

The summer programs were so successful we decided to keep up programming in August with a weekly academy Mitakuye Mondays. We saw the need and the response and decided to keep programming going on a regular basis with a monthly online Arts Academy. The Fall Arts Academy launched in September and ran the first Sunday of every month through December.

We had been working on ideas to create year-round arts programming for kids by partnering with reservation schools. When we learned that kids would not be returning to the classroom in the Fall we shifted gears and launched our most ambitious project to date. The Hoye Wayelo (“ I Am Sending A Voice”) School Art Program supplied over 1,500 students with Art Kits at 12 different schools across Pine Ridge and Rosebud. We created 35 videos for online weekly art classes!

See more on the School Art Program Here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/school-arts-program/

See Behind The Scenes for the School Art Program here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/school-arts-behind-the-scenes/

We wrapped up this year with our largest Winter Toy Drive ever! This year it took on special significance as kids have been enduring such tough times and most of the organizations that usually supply and deliver toys were not running. So we stepped up our game and stepped in to help. We brought in over 1,000 toys, packaged them and helped deliver them to schools and communities in Pine Ridge and Rosebud. It was a great joy to be able to provide arts and educational toys to young people during these very difficult times.

See more on the 2020 Winter Toy Drive here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/2020-winter-toy-drive/

As we shift into this new calendar year – we do not know what 2021 will hold in store. But we do know that the creative skills and and thinking that we share with the kids will be priceless tools to help navigate the unknown. And we will use those tools to continue to refocus and evolve our programming to fit the ever changing needs of the young people and the ever changing world they are navigating. And with that healing and creative spirit as the focus and the center of everything we do – we look forward to a new year of healing and creativity!

Filed Under: News

2020 WINTER TOY DRIVE!

December 25, 2020 by Mitakuye Foundation Leave a Comment

2020 was a difficult year – but we were able to end it on a very bright note with our largest winter toy drive ever! This year it took on special significance as kids have been enduring such tough times and most of the organizations that usually supply and deliver toys were not running. So we stepped up our game and brought in over 1,000 toys, packaged them and helped deliver them to schools and communities in Pine Ridge and Rosebud. It was a great joy to be able to provide arts and educational toys to young people during these very difficult times! Our sincere thanks to everyone who contributed and who volunteered to help make this happen!

Filed Under: News

SCHOOL ARTS: BEHIND THE SCENES!

December 1, 2020 by Mitakuye Foundation Leave a Comment

Sharing some Behind The Scenes of our biggest project ever!!


Our Hoye Wayelo “ I Am Sending A Voice” School Art Program launched this fall and has supplied over 1,200 students with Art Kits and online weekly art classes!

See our post on the Hoye Wayelo School Arts Program here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/school-arts-program/

The task was daunting and urgent as schools had already started and we had to fight to find materials – that were now in super high demand due to the pandemic. But, after a generous donation by the Sprague Family Foundation (thank you Lo!!), painstaking hours tracking down supplies, getting them to our regional head quarters in neighboring Wyoming (space graciously donated by Jill Smith – thank you!!), and a marvelous feat of assembling massive amounts of art supplies into kits (heroically coordinated by Ramsey Brown – thank you!), all the while following CDC safety guidelines … we pulled it off!

And with some help from volunteers, delivery helpers, and our local staff Stephanie Apple and Dante Witt – we delivered 1,200 art kits to schools in Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations – plus art supplies to our Monthly Art Academy Students and 200 lunches for them and their siblings!

At the same time we wrote the curriculum and quickly had to expand our 15 lesson plan into 31 videos to serve the needs of a full K-12 range of students. We embraced the remote creative landscape we were in and filmed and edited the lessons between California, Massachusetts and South Dakota. Lessons beautifully taught by Colette Crowley, LMHC, ATR.

  • photo credit Michael McGlaughlin

We worked with one of our long time students, Nora Marshall, who is an 8th grader at Loneman School in Oglala, to illustrate the intro video.

Check out the post about her here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/celebrating-a-young-artist/

The best part about arts education is that it helps inspire creative thinking. It is exactly that type of thinking that inspired us to find solutions to keep the arts opportunities flowing for students during this pandemic. Teachers now have a full 12 weeks of art lessons for students of all ages and over 1,200 kids have art supplies to work with. Our next step is to raise funding for 12 more weeks of lessons and a second semester of art supplies for even more students. We hope you will join us in our efforts!

Donate here to help us make that happen! https://mitakuyefoundation.com/donate/

Filed Under: News

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