Dear Tiwahe Community, 

On the Spring Equinox we gathered with our Wisdom Council to embrace the arrival of spring, known as “Ziissbaakdoke Giizas” (Sugar Moon) in Ojibwe and “Waníyetu Iyáwapi Wi” (Spring Renewal Moon) in Dakota.  We shared the significance of this season for our people’s past, present, and future. 

LeMoine LaPointe, a Tiwahe Founder and Wisdom Council member shared, “We are a collection of living, vibrant spirits who require being together. We have a deeper purpose: To bring rebirth/renewal to our people each season.”

Every season has its own unique purpose:   

• Summer is gathering 
• Fall is planning and preparing  
• Winter is reflecting, storytelling, and resting 
• Spring is implementing 

In Ojibwe tradition, the Sugar Moon signifies a time of balance and healing. This moon also marks the beginning of the maple sugar harvest, a time celebrated as the Anishinaabe new year. For the Dakota people, spring brings the Moons of Renewal and Growth. It is a time when tribal camps moved to higher ground in anticipation of the snowmelt. Men focused on fixing and creating weapons and resumed hunting duties, while women gathered early berries and roots, and repaired tipis. Children, after being confined indoors during winter, enjoyed the outdoors once again.  

While spring is meant to be a time of rebirth, renewal, and action for our people, many in our circles have shared that they are entering this season already feeling depleted, not rested. We’re leaving a winter where extremely warm weather and lack of snow and ice left us without many of the traditions and cultural practices that normally gather us and carry us through the season. We are all living through the physical and spiritual consequences of not having winter’s full reflection, storytelling, and rest.  

This winter was also marked by the collective trauma of our unhoused relatives gathering in encampments that showed once again how governmental agencies and non-Native service providers still do not have the solutions needed to meaningfully change the epidemic of addiction that disproportionately impacts American Indians. We are less than 2% of the population, but over 30% of the unhoused. The solutions lie in the Native people living in the communities we serve.  

All of this calls us back to our mission to strengthen cultural identity and Indigenous leadership. We all have a role to play in uplifting Indigenous knowledge and lifeways that honor our interconnectedness to our seasons, land, and community. Tiwahe Foundation exists to directly resource and support Native people in this work of building connections to Indigenous knowledge and personal leadership.  

Each year, we close an AIFEP grant round just before the Spring Equinox in order to prepare and resource our community in time for the spring season of doing. This year, we received another record number of applications and it has been our honor and privilege to work with so many of you on turning your ideations to strengthen your cultural connections, skills, and agency into a plan. We look forward to working with so many of you throughout and beyond your AIFEP projects.  

In this time of implementing our visions for 2024, we’re also thrilled to share the following: 

🌟 Strategic Plan: On the Fall Solstice, we gathered with our Wisdom Council and Board of Directors to set a shared vision of success for the next two years. Now, as spring is here and we are implementing this plan, we share it with you. The coming years will focus on more engagement with our donor community, partnerships that uplift our people, solidarity with our Black and brown relatives, and shifting the ways that our people and our gifts are resourced and recognized by philanthropy. View our 2024 – 2026 Strategic Plan Here.  

Above: Tiwahe Foundation and Wakan Tipi staff and families gather at Dodge Nature Center.

🌳 Cultural Team Retreats: Last week, we visited Dodge Nature Center with our friends from Wakan Tipi to learn how to make čaŋhaŋpi (maple sugar)!  

✨Wopida Tanka to Pete Cleary from Dodge Nature Center for hosting us and our families, and to Barry Hand for sharing his knowledge on traditional Dakota maple sugaring. Barry uplifted Porky White for his work reviving the sugaring traditions that were almost lost to the cultural suppression we have all experienced, especially when many Dakota people were forcibly removed from Mni Sota. We are grateful for all the Indigenous leaders working to uplift and reconnect our people and traditional ways of being.