Vivaciously Vexed Vixen

Friends of Pine Ridge Reservation

I am starting out with the organization that I am focusing on this holiday season. 

I’ve always been very particular about the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota and this past summer I ran into an ABC special on the Pine Ridge Reservation and found over a hundred different ways that I could get involved. My favorite has been the website Friends of Pine Ridge Reservation:

http://FriendsofPineRidgeReservation.org/

Since it is impossible to provide assistance to individual families on the reservation from a distance and do it equitably, the Friends of Pine Ridge Reservation website focuses on specific needs of the many schools and social service organizations such as shelters, children’s organizations, and clinics physically located on the reservation. These organizations, always understaffed and under funded, struggle in turn to serve thousands of children, women and men in dire need. Please do not underestimate the importance of a small donation. Your contribution, sent directly to a reservation organization—even if only a single pair of socks for a child who has none—makes a huge impact when combined with many others.

The have many donation drives that you can take part in and you can help children, schools, elders, families, foster children, etc. 

They also have emergency drives for things that are needed the most as well as a Donation Item of the week. 

Here is the current emergency donation drive (if you can only commit to one thing please commit to this one):
http://friendsofpineridgereservation.org/projects/An_Emergency_Heating_and_Food_Donation_Drive.shtml 

You can donate money or you can choose to donate a toy to a child for the holidays that will cost you no more that 10 dollars!

Please, please, please help these people out. Here is some more info about the tribe and the reservation: 

Pine Ridge Reservation, located in South Dakota, is home to the Oglala Sioux Tribe and is 2,000,000 acres large with an estimated population of close to 40,000. The reservation is large, and its needs immense, commensurate with grinding poverty. Unemployment is over 80%, the weather is extreme, and families struggle mightily with crushing financial, housing, health, educational and social issues.

Please remember that it gets very cold in South Dakota and most of these people don’t have clothing that keeps them warm enough, or a place to sleep that has heating available. There are many elders and children struggling just to stay warm this winter, For a TV special about the conditions of the people of the reservation:
http://abc.go.com/watch/2020/SH559026/VD55148316/2020-1014-children-of-the-plains 

It will break your heart. I cried throughout the whole special.