Grantee Stories Archives - Tiwahe Foundation

The Creator’s Game

June 2, 2021/in Grantee Stories, Tiwahe News /by tiwahenew

Donor Spotlight: John Hunter

Founder of Twin Cities Native Lacrosse

On a crisp spring Saturday at the Lake Nokomis Community Center Fields, you can see entire families gathering for lacrosse. As young and old run up and own the field, howls, laughter and strategy ensue as handmade sticks are flung to catch the small handmade ball in one of the oldest games played among Indigenous people in North America.

The gathering is a dream come true for John Hunter, founder of Twin Cities Native Lacrosse, who started the first lacrosse organization for Indigenous people in the Minneapolis area in 2014.

“We wanted to create good opportunities for Native families to first play traditional game, which is part of their own family histories and traditional history,” says Hunter, who played lacrosse in high school and had the interest reignited after his then 11-year-old daughter wanted to play. “It’s not just about the game. It’s about making sticks and certain lessons and teachings about the game.”

Lessons include health, family, community, dispute settlement, self-confidence, worldview and spirituality as lacrosse is considered the Creator’s game.

Hunter, who is Winnebago of Nebraska, White Earth Ojibwe and Muscogee (Creek) from Oklahoma, received his first Tiwahe grant that same year to purchase sticks and equipment for the modern stick game as seen in high school and collegiate competition. The organization also helps students with team fees, helmets, pads and other equipment for the modern game, which has grown among Minneapolis high schools over the years. Hunter has also created all-Indigenous teams who were coached by Native coaches to play in city leagues.

“If we are going to do anything, we are going to support the traditional game,” Hunter says, adding that in the beginning, there were no traditional stick makers but now there are eight. He also throws in another fact: the oldest lacrosse stick in the world was found in Minnesota. “There are no places that I know of in the Dakotas and Ojibwe that host their own organized traditional games since colonialism.”

He said the all-volunteer organization has been thankful for Tiwahe’s support over the years as Twin Cities Native Lacrosse has not officially incorporated as a nonprofit and has a fiscal sponsor. The organization also doesn’t qualify for other sports grants as its primary focus is culture and not health.

“Tiwahe fits us perfectly for what we want to do,” Hunter says. “We came into existence because there was a gap that we wanted to close, a community gap. We wanted inspire families and youth to learn lacrosse, learn their culture and learn their history. It wasn’t about making the organization bigger and Tiwahe doesn’t worry about that.”

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Supporting Cultural Vibrancy

May 27, 2021/in Donor Stories, Grantee Stories, Tiwahe News /by tiwahenew

Donor & grantee spotlight: Maggie Lorenz

Executive Director | Wakaŋ Tipi Center Director & Lower Phalen Creek Project

Maggie Lorenz knows how important the Tiwahe Foundation is as both a giver and receiver. Maggie, executive director of the Lower Phalen Creek Project, a Native-led environmental nonprofit in St. Paul, has been a multiple grant recipient and a donor the past five years.

“The Tiwahe Foundation has given to me a lot personally and this concept only works if our community makes it work and puts money back in,” says Maggie, who contributes to the organization monthly. “For me, $17 a month isn’t a lot of money when it’s put together in a pool – it helps give people in our community money when they need that support.”

Headshot of Maggie Lorenz

Maggie, who is Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians and Spirit Lake Dakota, has also experienced that support as well. She received her first Tiwahe grant as a senior trying to finish college. A few years later, she applied for a culture grant to help her and family purchase a thípi which was used for daughter’s and nieces’ coming of age ceremony, išnáthi.

“Ultimately, that was a great gift from the Tiwahe Foundation to allow my family to have that,” Maggie recalled, remembering the importance of those ceremonies in the transition to womanhood for the Dakota.

Recently, she was awarded the Oyate Network Community Project Grant to produce a play that will accompany the opening of the Wakáŋ Tipi Center, a 9,000-square-foot environmental and cultural center along the Mississippi River. The Wakáŋ Tipi, which means Dwelling Place of the Sacred in Dakota, is a cave where the Dakota believe sacred beings dwell. The petroglyphs in the cave honored these spirits but are now gone after explorers discovered the area.

Maggie is working with the New Native Theater organization on the play that will be in the Dakota language and will debut when Wakáŋ Tipi Center opens in spring 2023. Maggie was eligible for Tiwahe’s Oyate grant after participating in the Oyate Network program, which focuses on collaboration and American Indian leadership across Minnesota in urban, tribal and rural communities to move projects from isolation to transformation to action and social change.

“The grants that the Tiwahe Foundation offer to community members give us the flexible support that we need to not only get projects going that are important for the community but are just as important for individuals as these also support our own cultural vibrancy,” she said. “We would have a much less vibrancy if we didn’t have Tiwahe.”

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AIFEP Grantee Creates Star Walk

September 11, 2020/in Grantee Stories /by tiwahenew

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Imagine you walk through a maze of white paper walls. There are star lights flying around as you walk through the dark maze. You keep walking, and you see different videos projected along the walls. The videos all about Stars, Star Stories, and Star People. This is what our AIFEP Grantee, Delinda Pushetonequa, was able to create with her AIFEP Grant. Pushetonequa, a transitioning stage actress, and multi-media theatre producer, asked for the grant so that she could purchase equipment and software to fulfill her creative aspirations.

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After Pushetonequa’s Star Walk, she was then able to collaborate with Native film director, Leya Hale, on a documentary about Murdered and Missing Indigenous Women. Following that, she began working at the New Native Theatre office as an Artistic Associate focusing on Acting. Pushetonequa says, “We are going to create video content for Actor 101 series that will also go on Youtube”. This series will help aspiring Native actors with their journeys.

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Oyate Network Alum Launches Children’s Curriculum and Artist Collective

June 23, 2020/in Grantee Stories /by tiwahenew

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Brook LaFloe, a member of the Winter 2018 Oyate Leadership cohort and Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa, used her grant to help launch Niniijaanis Discovery. The community project aimed to promote access to educational equity and economic opportunity for Native American women, children, and their families. Brook says Niniijaanis discovery “helped contributors rediscover what it is that our youngest children need” through the creation of children’s learning materials developed “to help them thrive into healthy whole Indigenous beings.”

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The program piloted the production of culturally relevant learning materials and curriculum for Native American children from birth to the age of 6. Ben Spears (Oyate Leadership Cohort 5) and Janice LaFloe (Winter 2018 Oyate Leadership Cohort) were lead partners in the project and their team shared traditional and non-traditional knowledge to help develop and sustain their work.

[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Brook shares her experience as one that brings her “good medicine”, and “heightened awareness toward culturally relevant education”. Her experience helping develop Niniijaanis Discovery motivates her, and ignites her passion towards being a dedicated educator of the future Native generations. Brook is transforming the community project into a social enterprise, Niniijaanis One of Ones. You can learn more about the release of the Children’s curriculum and the artist collective that made it happen at https://niniijaanis1of1s.com/[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]

Oyate Network Alum Writes Cookbook

April 24, 2020/in Grantee Stories /by tiwahenew

[vc_row type=”in_container” scene_position=”center” text_color=”dark” text_align=”left” overlay_strength=”0.3″][vc_column width=”2/3″ column_padding=”padding-3-percent” column_padding_position=”right” background_color_opacity=”1″ background_hover_color_opacity=”1″][vc_column_text]What do you get when you start with a heart full of Indigenous knowledge, pages of Anishinaabe language graphics, big heaping handfuls of generational knowledge, and armloads of food to nurture our relatives? A pinch of humor? An Anishinaabe cookbook, right?[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]Derek Nicholas’s Eating with the Seasons is more than a cookbook, it’s a cultural resource. Derek is a student at the University of Minnesota Morris and was a member of the Oyate Leadership 2019 Cohort. He’s a member of the Red Cliff Band of Lake Superior Chippewa.[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]“My grant was to create a project to strengthen communities,” Derek writes. Through his work Derek’s extends the movement for language revitalization to Indigenous food sovereignty with how we eat and take care of our relatives and ourselves, “I created a seasonally cookbook with the addition of Anishinaabeg language and cultural lessons. This book gives the tools to eat healthy while teaching language and traditions.”[/vc_column_text][vc_column_text]And, all that delicious, hard work is also shifting the narrative of Native communities from peoples living in a bygone past to resilient communities living in the here and now. Yes, this is ancestor work created for the modern foodie and budding chef in all of us. Ever thought about how you might cook suckerfish – Namebin – for the first time ever? Ever wanted to try your hand at venison chili? Brew maple cinnamon ice – Niibish? How about curry squash soup? You’ll find that not only is Derek telling our story but he’s telling it in a way that tells a story of Native peoples in our collective present – through language and food – in abundance. Chi-mii gwech Nicholas! Wiisinidaa! Let’s Eat![/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row]