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Our SCHOOL ARTS PROGRAM is our most successful far-reaching program to date …

But we need your help to keep it going!

The success of this program has been greater then we could have ever imagined: 
*Students demonstrate improved mental and emotional health. 
*Kids with learning difficulties have found success and built confidence in the classroom. 
*Teachers report wide-ranging behavioral benefits that extend into all areas of course work. 
*Schools have restructured their schedules to fit our program into their curriculum. 

Check out our Year In Review (2025) HERE

See more about our School Arts Program (2024) HERE

We hope you will become an ongoing partner with us to continue providing our 
life-affirming programming to kids who live in extremely difficult conditions!

Tax Deductible Donations: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/donate/

2025 was another record-breaker at Mitakuye! Here are a few highlights …

As the year started, students were already deep into the 2024-2025 School Arts Program!

The theme for our Winter Art Contest was “THE ELEMENTS.”

We received submissions from all over Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and beyond! Our top winners included a short story by Grand Prize winner Devin Brown and this dramatic acrylic work by First Place winner Kinsey Hill:

Additional winners include: Coryn Black Feather, Armani Whirlwind Horse,Scarlet Bryne, Latisha White Dress, and Nicole Emery:

Summer was busy with teaching, making art, and preparing for our 2025-2026 School Arts Program. The School Arts program provides a comprehensive arts educational program including: Curriculum, Instruction – via filmed lessons, and Art Supplies for kids to do the lessons.

We purchased, sorted, and delivered art supplies to a record-breaking 3,500 kids in schools throughout Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and Cheyenne River reservations!

We filmed a whole new series of lessons for the 2025-2026 season …

Our library now includes over 125 lessons for ages K-12 that have been designed by master artists and art therapists. Students work with a variety of mediums including: graphite, oil pastels, markers, watercolor paint, chalk pastels, watercolor pencils, and tempera paint. Some of the new lessons include:

It’s not summer without teaching and Art Days!

The winners of our Potato Creek Wacipi Youth Special danced through a summer rain storm!

The theme for our Fall Contest was “WILD!”

Some of our top winners include Grand Prize winner Jasmine Tibbits:

And Director’s Award winner Kris Aquino:

We started a new partnership with Owaŋg Wašteya Waȟwayela Mani and sponsored a special Design Contest for their Youth Fashion Show at this year’s LNI! Grand Prize Winner Stevie Bravo and her Grandma celebrated her win!

Community Events, Teacher’s Workshops, and so much more! We served over 4,000 kids this year because of our generous supporters who believe in the healing power of art! Please help us keep these programs running so we can reach even more kids in 2026!

Click HERE to donate. We can’t do it without you!

2024 was another record breaking year at Mitakuye with our programs serving thousands of kids on Pine Ridge, Rosebud, and beyond!

The year started off with our 2023-2024 School Arts Program in full swing!

Read more about it here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/school-arts-2023-2024/

In February, Richard Moves Camp’s new book My Grandfather’s Altar, was released! The book was edited by Mitakuye co-founder Simon J. Joseph, Ph.D., produced by Mitakuye co-founder and Director Jennifer Jessum, published by the University of Nebraska Press, and created as part of the Mitakuye Foundation’s Elders Project.

Read more about the book here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/my-grandfathers-altar/

Richard spent much of the spring doing lectures and book signings and in May we had the honor of organizing a special event at UCLA for Richard and his book:

In addition to all of our arts programming – the Summer was busy with the 500 Mile Sacred Hoop Run and the Potato Creek Wacipi!

Our 2024-2025 School Arts Program broke another record this year delivering art supplies to over 2,800 kids. Our staff worked hard to get supplies sorted and delivered to schools on Pine Ridge, Rosebud and surrounding communities!

In August we took our student Nora Marshall back to Idyllwild Arts Academy in California to start her 3rd year of conservatory arts training. Nora is the 2nd student we have been able to help attend on full scholarship and we are in the works with the academy to create more opportunities for students which we will be announcing next year.

Kids from all over Pine Ridge and Rosebud submitted artwork to our FALL ART CONTEST

See more of the winning artwork here: https://mitakuyefoundation.com/fall-art-contest-2024/

We have a lot of exciting new opportunities that we are working on for the kids in 2025 and beyond. As always, none of this would be possible without the generous contributions of our supporters.

We appreciate your on going support and hope you will donate here https://mitakuyefoundation.com/donate/ to help us keep the arts education and opportunities flowing in 2025!

WOPILA!

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Pics

Video

Link to 2023-2024

Pics from classrooms

The theme for the Fall 2024 Art Contest was DREAM.

Students from schools all over Pine Ridge and Rosebud submitted art in many different mediums including: acrylic & tempera paint, watercolor, colored pencil, charcoal, graphite, oil & chalk pastel, digital art, video, poetry, and song! Congratulations to every student who participated! Here are some of the top winners in each age category:

GRAND PRIZE

FIRST PLACE

HONORABLE MENTION

MERIT AWARD

DIRECTORS AWARD

“This program has been essential in uplifting our children in such a powerful and positive way. “

– Cynthia New Holy, Teacher,  Isna Wica Owayawa

Now in our 5th year, the Mitakuye School Arts Program enrolls over 2,000 kids each year, providing them with arts curriculum, instruction – via our filmed lessons, and art supplies. We filmed a whole new season of lessons this year and introduced several new mediums into the curriculum. Here are some of our classrooms in action!

We filmed our latest season of lessons with master arts educator and instructor Vicky Kosuda…

Our new lessons incorporated new mediums and expanded our offerings for all age groups and levels…

This is what some of our teachers have to say about the program:

“The Mitakuye Foundation has been a huge support for our community on the Pine Ridge Reservation. The work of the Mitakuye Foundation has been so essential  in our community that deals with poverty, generational traumas, and limited resources to the art world. This program has been essential in uplifting our children in such a powerful and positive way.”

– Cynthia New Holy, Teacher,  Isna Wica Owayawa

“The Mitakuye School Arts Program provides students with many new learning opportunities. The program is the answer to a lack of consistent art instruction on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation.“

– Shawn Callanan, Teacher, Wolf Creek

“Art allows our students to showcase who they are and truly express themselves. The programs offered by the Mitakuye Foundation allow us as a school to provide more opportunities to our students to do just that. There is nothing better than seeing the smiles on the students’ faces when they hear that it is art time! They truly light up! Seeing the skills they learn from the videos being applied to their art and in other areas is amazing. We are so lucky to have been working with the Mitakuye Foundation and we hope to continue our partnership for years to come!”

– Alexis Hogan, Teacher He Dog School

“This is a beautiful program that gives students many different perspectives from different levels. The lessons are beautifully done. They love that you go step by step especially since many think they can’t do it… and the cheers after they are done are so amazing … what an amazing gift for these students to have.“

– Teresa Graham, Teacher, Red Cloud High School

“Mitakuye is a great program that allows our Indigenous students to experience different art mediums that they might not otherwise have the opportunity to be exposed to. Students love getting to experiment with different mediums and express themselves through art. Pilamayaye Mitakuye for the opportunity!”

-Jessi Bean, Teacher, American Horse School

“I value your program so much and appreciate all that you are able to offer to our students!! Mitakuye Art has made me an art teacher! Thank you!!“

– Anne Abold, Teacher, Wolf Creek

“Art was not in our program. The supplies you sent were the only art supplies we had this school year for art. Art is in our hearts and hands, the children are natural artists!”

– Twila Zephier, Teacher, Little Wound School

“The students love art and this is so important. Thank you for this opportunity to have Art in our school again. “

– Theresa Lessert, Principal, Our Lady of Lourdes School

“The impact of the Foundation has changed the opportunities available for the youth on the reservation. Community members look to the Mitakuye Foundation as a positive youth force and a positive change agent for the reservation.”

– Saunie Wilson, Formal Tribal Judge and Dean Of Students, Wolf Creek School

Our School Arts program is our most popular and far reaching endeavor to date. We are hoping to focus more resources and energy on this program so we can continue to expand our library of lessons and expand the reach of the program to serve as many kids as possible.

We hope you will click HERE to help us to continue to bring the healing power of art to the wonderful young people we work with!

We are absolutely thrilled to announce the launch of Richard Moves Camp’s new book My Grandfather’s Altar. The book was edited by Mitakuye co-founder Simon J. Joseph, Ph.D., produced by Mitakuye co-founder and Director Jennifer Jessum, published by the University of Nebraska Press, and created under the auspices of the Mitakuye Foundation’s Elders Project.

From the onset of the Mitakuye Foundation, we understood that one of the greatest resources kids on the reservation have is their elders and so they have been woven in to every facet of the work we do with students. Being able to help bring this book into the world has been a true honor and being able to help preserve this knowledge for young people is the fruition of a vital aspect of our mission to create programs and opportunities that uplift and empower Native youth!

You can read more about the process of bringing this book into the world and details on how to order it here: https://simonjjoseph.com/books/my-grandfathers-altar/

Donate HERE to help us continue to do work like this

2023 was full of creativity at Mitakuye! Our year started off with over 2,000 kids engaged in our weekly art lessons through our School Arts program!

Our Spring Arts Contest received submissions from schools all over the reservation!

Our Summer Programs were in full swing, starting with the 40th annual Sacred Hoop Run. Over 200 kids and supporters participated!

Our Art Days program brought classes to kids at schools around the reservation!

Our Black Hills Arts Academy brought kids from Pine Ridge and Rosebud reservations for a week of creativity in their ancestral homelands.

Our group project this year focused on kids creating 3 dimensional costume and art designs that were featured in a special short film project Takoja.

We created a new series of lessons for the 2023-2024 School Arts Program:

In the fall we were able to visit with our student Nora Marshall in Idyllwild, CA. Through our mentoring program we were able to advocate for Nora to receive a full scholarship at the Idyllwild Arts Academy!

Here are some photos from an impromptu art experiment we created with Nora earlier in the year:

We are also thrilled to announce the completion of a book project we helped bring into the world! My Grandfather’s Altar is the family history and memoir of Richard Moves Camp. The book was edited by Mitakuye co-founder Simon J. Joseph, Ph.D., produced by Mitakuye co-founder and Director Jennifer Jessum, published by the University of Nebraska Press, and created under the auspices of the Mitakuye Foundation. This is a first draft of the cover we designed for the project which is due to launch in Spring of 2024!

You can donate HERE to help us keep the creativity flowing in 2024!

We had a busy summer of programs and want to send out a huge Wopila to everyone who shared their resources to help us make this happen for the kids!

Summer started off with the 40th Annual 500 Mile Sacred Hoop Run!

We spent time in the schools with our Art Days programs!

The highlight of our summer programs is a week of making art at our Black Hills Arts Academy.

One of the highlights of the academy was our special short film project which we will be releasing later this year. Here is a sneak peak of some of the amazing artwork and 3D character/costume design  done by our students using all natural materials.

Stay tuned for a special post about the film project and designs!

Congratulations to everyone who submitted to our SPRING 2023 contest! The theme for this contest was SPRING!! Students are invited to interpret the theme in any way they wish. They can submit paintings, drawings, writing, photography, films, collage, music, dance … anything the theme inspires them to use.

We award artists in different age categories from Kindergarten up through high school. Winners receive cash prizes and art supplies. All students who submit receive certificates and acknowledgements. Below are some of our top submissions. Congratulations to all of our winners!

Grand Prize: Kinsey Hill Age 15

First Place Winners

Honorable Mention and Merit Award Winners

The 500 MILE SACRED HOOP PRAYER RUN is an annual run that serves over 150 Lakota youth. Kids run a 5-day, 500-mile relay that follows a sacred loop around the Black Hills and many other sacred sites in Nebraska, Wyoming and Montana. Along the way the kids participate in ceremony, prayer, and traditional teachings. The run is based on the Creation story of the Lakota people which refers to a Great Race around the Black Hills between the “two-leggeds” and the “four-leggeds. The youth run in prayer for causes close to their hearts and to relieve the suffering of the people.

We have been sponsoring the 500 Mile Sacred Hoop Run since 2012

Our documentary film about the run Before They Were Horsemen … (formerly Sacred Hoop)is currently in post-production and aiming for release this year. See a sneak peak HERE