Lakota Outreach Project

why it's important:

The Lakota Outreach Program is a program that was started by a high school counselor named Ray Piagentini. When he a young man and fresh out of the army he went to the Crow Creek Indian Reservation to visit the family of a dead comrade. He meant to be there for 2 weeks but stayed there for 6 months being immersed in the ancient culture of the Lakota people. His love for the people grew, but so did the realization that the Crow Creek Reservation has the highest suicide and alcoholism rate in all of North America. This reservation is one of the most poverty stricken areas on the continent and we are loosing one of the wisest and oldest cultures on earth. Ray came home and started the My Brother's Keeper Club. Every year he takes 35 high school students to the reservation to serve as volunteer day camp counselors for approximately 100 Native American Children for 8 days. The club holds fundraisers and collects donated clothes and goods throughout the year to send to the reservation and sends care packages to the children they made such close connections with over the summer. It's a beautiful program that teaches people to value different cultures and value each other despite their different pasts. We are fighting to preserve a culture and a people who have so much to share with the world.
These children need hope. They need to know that people care about them and are willing to fight so that they might have a better future. We try to show them that they have value and can find support amongst each other. We run a camp that spends a week doing activities that involve teamwork and trust and support in hopes that they realize that they will always have each other.
We hug and hold these children all week long and never let go of their hand because they crave attention and love and us just being their and giving them 100% of our attention just brings smiles to their faces and happy tears to their eyes because they know that they aren't alone.
Their culture is disappearing with their elderly and we are loosing one of the wisest cultures that have ever existed. They are so very alone and so very hopeless and our organization is struggling to keep running because of the lack of support from our high school. We need help because our mission is a very important one.

the plan of action:

One of our largest obstacles is getting our School Board to allow the program to continue. For some reason that we receive little to no support from the board and from our school administration. However, we have worked very hard to accommodate the board and have worked hard to keep them comfortable and up to date with everything we do. They are still often the major obstacle we face when it comes to running the trip but we have continued despite these problems and still struggle through them today.

We have measured our success in the increasing number of kids who attend our camp each year. More and more kids want to be a part of the camp, but we don't have enough money to feed them and take them out to certain activities. Kids always return from previous years and we are told by teachers and guardians that the kids talk about it all year long and look forward to it all winter. This is like a vacation away from the heartache of their everyday lives where they can have a good meal and receive the attention they deserve. So we always need more help to keep this program going, and to help more kids.

how you can get involved: