Guest Bloggers – Page 39 – St. Joseph's Indian School

High on Life!

Fr. Steve helped the Lakota students at the prize table during St. Joseph’s Sobriety Carnival. — Fr. Steve helps a student pick out her prizes during the carnival.

On February 8, the Substance Abuse Prevention Committee (SAPC) sponsored a Valentine’s Carnival and Dance for the Lakota students at St. Joseph’s Indian School.

The carnival included lots of fun games like bowling, horseshoes, musical squares and many more for the students in grades 1-5. The kids earned prizes by playing games. Everyone had fun, including the staff and older students who volunteered their time to help run the games and prize tables.

The Native American children played all kinds of games at St. Joseph’s annual Sobriety Carnival! — Sam aims for the can while playing the bozo game during the carnival.

Later in the evening, our older Native American students (grades 6-12) got to show off their cool moves during a dance. Chris, a senior at St. Joseph’s, was the DJ. He did a great job and was able to get most of our students out on the dance floor – not an easy task!

A Sobriety Poster Contest was also held in which our high school students were the judges. Ambrose Home (1^st–3^rd grade boys) took first place, second place went to William Home (4^th-5^th grade girls) and Speyer Home (6^th-8^th grade boys) won third place.

Ambrose Home took first place in the Sobriety Poster Contest with their ‘We will walk through life drug-free’ poster.Besides helping beat the winter blues, the Valentine’s Carnival and Dance shows our kids how to have fun without using drugs and alcohol.

The poster contest for the Sobriety Carnival offered inspiring messages for living drug free. — Ambrose Home took first place in the Sobriety Poster Contest with their ‘We will walk through life drug-free’ poster.

We are teaching them to get high on life and to find pleasure in the simple things!

Having Fun & Keeping Fit

Keeping fit and strong is important to us at the health center, not just for the Lakota students, but for our employees as well.

Nurse Ronda has been a yoga instructor for years. Jeff, our PA, has been a wrestling coach in his spare time for as long as I’ve known him.

. Joseph’s Health Center team takes great care of the Lakota boys and girls! — Nurse Ronda (top left) is a yoga instructor. Jeff (center) coaches wrestling. Nurse Nancy (right) has now become a fitness instructor!

So, with a desire to keep myself fit as well, I have become a certified fitness instructor! I am offering aerobic exercise classes to St. Joseph’s employees after work a couple days a week. Fun and free. Can’t go wrong with that, right?

We’ll see how many hang in there till spring.

Have a wonderful day!

Looking forward to a long weekend

Hello and greetings from the High School Program!

Since St. Joseph’s high school students attend the Chamberlain public school, their schedule is different from the 1^st-8^th grade students.

We’re looking forward to a long weekend with Friday and Monday off for parent-teacher conferences and President’s Day. On Monday we will have a presentation by medical students from the University of South Dakota. We try to utilize no school days to bring in speakers or plan activities that will appeal to the kids and expose them to opportunities for their futures.

Parent-teacher conferences are a nice opportunity to find out what gains our Lakota students have made as well as which areas they need to focus on. We always invite the students’ parent/guardians to take part in conferences and we have a growing number of parents attending. One mother came from three hours away last semester – her dedication to her son’s education is commendable. For parents/guardians who cannot attend, our houseparents summarize the information and share it with them.

We are also looking ahead to the next school year as we work on eighth grade selections. This is a process of determining how many openings we will have in the high school program and seeing which eighth graders will best fit the public school our students attend.

Some years, we have about the same number of openings as we have eighth graders – that makes the selection process much easier. Other years, there are many more eighth graders than there are openings and the process is very difficult.

We begin in October when the High School Residential Coordinator meets with the eighth grade students to share information about the high school program; the students have an opportunity to ask questions and then they fill out a survey about their plans for the following year.

In February the Coordinator meets individually with each student to “interview” them. This consists of questions about their academics, attendance, and participation in extra-curricular/artistic/musical activities. At this same time, surveys are sent to the teachers, eighth grade houseparents, and Family Service Counselors to gather as much information as possible.

Our goal and desire is to keep every student here until they graduate high school. However, that doesn’t always work due to lack of space or when individual student circumstances have changed. One situation we’re seeing more frequently is that the student’s families are becoming more stable and self-sustained.

In these situations, the families are often ready to have their children home with them. As much as we love having the kids at St. Joseph’s, our ultimate goal is to help them and their families become productive members of their tribes and their communities. When that happens and families can be together, everyone benefits.

We are enriched by the opportunity that is provided when families entrust their children to our care and we’re fortunate to be a part of positive changes for the future. Most of all, we are grateful for the generosity of others in helping us accomplish our mission.

Meet Luisa, new houseparent

It’s hard to believe we have been in Chamberlain, South Dakota, for almost six months. The memories of being welcomed by the bright green rolling plains are quite vivid—it truly feels like yesterday!

Of course, it doesn’t take much for me to snap back to rationality and know it was in fact, not yesterday. One look down at my boots (encrusted with snow) or the sound of my husband yelling out in frustration from the shower “Luisa our pipes are frozen!” and I think to myself: Nope. It is definitely not August anymore.

As newcomers to the state and new houseparents at St. Joseph’s Indian School, the people we come in contact with often ask us where we come from. When we say Florida people’s eyes get wide and the next question is “WHY are you here?”

Not only that, but when we called banks and other places in Florida to verify they had our new address, most of the strangers on the other line would outright chuckle and say something like “South Dakota? Wow, interesting…”

Ironically, what Jachin (my husband) and I both still wonder is why we never thought about coming here before.

We have both traveled to experience and study various cultures. We are both passionate about intercultural studies, helping the marginalized, and how God works through different people groups. Being a part of the work here at St. Joseph’s captures that and so much more.

In August we did more than just make an impulsive move across the country.

We committed to improving the lives and influencing the future of 12 Lakota boys and 12 Lakota girls.

Through these blog entries, I hope to share with you our adventures, their development, our laughter, our quest to help them reclaim their culture, and the lessons these incredible little ones have taught me.

Finally, I hope to give you a sneak peak of what life is really like at St. Joseph’s Indian School. Oh and I will definitely be sharing lots and lots of photos and videos! You may be far away but it will be nearly impossible for you not to feel the joy these kiddos bring to our life.

Let’s get started with some of my recent favorites.

The girls and me being silly.	Fun with Photoshop!
All my boys sledding.

And the one that makes me laugh so hard it hurts, a video of the boys and I playing our animal game:

Psalm 127:3-5 Behold, children are a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Like arrows in the hand of a warrior are the children of one’s youth. Blessed is the man who fills his quiver with them! He shall not be put to shame when he speaks with his enemies in the gate.

Visit us for a tour!

The Medicine Wheel Garden will offer a quiet place for reflection and respite on St. Joseph’s campus. — The addition to the building is finished, but some displays are still under construction in the new Tokéya uŋkí nájiŋpi (We stood here in the beginning) Historical/Alumni Center.

I’m Charleen, the Historical Center Coordinator; I joined the team in October 2012. I have worked at the museum as a seasonal part-time employee the past three summers. I have always had a love of history and I am honored to be the Coordinator for the Historical Center. My responsibilities include greeting visitors to St. Joseph’s and giving guided campus tours. I am looking forward to helping our visitors learn more about the history of St. Joseph’s Indian School and the great Lakota (Sioux) Culture.

Construction of the Tokéya uŋkí nájiŋpi (We stood here in the beginning) Historical/Alumni Center is still in progress. However, the Historical Center is now open to visitors and some of the displays have been completed. The displays are amazing and a visit is highly recommended. The Medicine Wheel Garden will be completed this spring. Native plants and landscaping will complete the project, once the chill of winter has gone.

Currently, guided campus tours are available at 10:30 a.m. Monday through Friday. Tours can be scheduled at a different time if this does not fit your schedule. Transportation can be arranged for any tour.

All tours begin at the Akta Lakota Museum.
Summer schedule: May 1- October 31, daily tours will be at 10:30 a.m. and 1:30 p.m. Monday – Saturday.

In addition, visitors can enjoy a self-guided tour with additional options available at the Historical Center.

A cd to put in your car player
An mp3 player for a walking tour.

All options are free of charge.

To schedule a tour please call me at 800-798-3452 or email me at muscd@stjo.org

A busy weekend ahead

St. Joseph’s annual Sobriety Carnival includes all sorts of fun games for the Lakota children! — Cup stacking is one of the most popular games at the Sobriety Carnival!

Greetings friends! I hope you are all doing well, staying healthy, and staying warm. Things here at St. Joseph’s Indian School are going well. We have a busy week ahead of us!

This weekend is our annual Valentine’s Day Sobriety Carnival and Dance. This celebration helps to promote sobriety while the Lakota students in grades 1-5 grade enjoy carnival games and the students in grades 6-12 get to have a dance.

Our Substance Abuse Prevention Committee (SAPC) puts on several activities throughout the year to promote sobriety and the dangers of using drugs and overusing alcohol. The students always seem to enjoy these celebrations.

This weekend the St. Joseph’s Indian School seventh and eighth grade boys will host a basketball tournament. Several teams will be on campus to play in the tournament. The boys are very excited to play and hope to have many fans in the stand cheering them on.

Basketball season is in full swing for the Lakota boys at St. Joseph’s Indian School. — The seventh and eighth grade boys’ basketball team will host a tournament at St. Joseph’s this Saturday.

Next week will bring the start of the Spring Cycle of the FAST program. Families and Schools Together, or FAST, is a great program that brings several of our families to campus for eight Fridays. The program consists of activities designed to help promote family togetherness and strengthen family bonds. We are looking forward to sharing the eight Fridays of FAST with 15 families this cycle!

As always, we thank you for the support you offer to St. Joseph’s Indian School. Without your prayers and financial generosity, we would not be able to offer the programs so vital to our students here at St. Joseph’s Indian School.

Super Bowl Party!

St. Joseph’s Sheehy Home was separated by Raven’s fans and 49ers fans. — San Francisco fans on the right, Baltimore fans on the left.

Ah yes. Time for post-Super Bowl Monday Morning Quarterbacking. What was done, what wasn’t done, what should have been done instead. I’m not talking about the game of course. I’m talking about the 5^th Annual High School Super Bowl party! In the past, Anita from Sheehy home has done much of the organizing for the party. When she suggested this as an activity for St. Joseph’s High School Student Leadership Group, they jumped at the chance. We have planned several events this year and have learned some important lessons through trial and error.

This was going to be our Comeback Kid moment.

We were going to show the world how great we could be.

We’ve been working together long enough that we can play to each other’s strengths. We coordinated a menu with contributions from each high school home. Dawson loves to be helpful and is eager to jump in, but he often takes on too many tasks and can’t do it all. He was allowed to take on two tasks. He picked up the pop for Giles home and hand delivered invitations to the eighth grade homes, high school staff and homes. Andrew knows that he gets busy, so he picked a task that he could do immediately and be done. He called up and secured a large-screen TV for the Raven’s room. Erica is good at contacting people through e-mails, so she did some coordinating of donations. Leahanna likes hands-on tasks, so she counted out the M&Ms for our guessing game. Chris loves to orchestrate and organize. He took care of designing and printing the invitations. The kids helped me make a list of snacks and prizes that would not be “lame.” Everyone agreed to stay and help clean up afterwards.

Come Sunday evening, we were ready.

Sort of.

All the assigned tasks were covered, except for decorating. (Note to self: next year assign a set-up crew as well as a clean-up crew.) We had plenty of food. We had plenty of pop, water and Gatorade. We had games for the non-football fans. We had cool prizes. (Note to self: the punch balls were noisy and obnoxious, especially when the kids started bouncing them off of each other. Get more next year.)

Patrick acted as referee, blowing his whistle whenever there was a touchdown, interception, field goal, etc., and drawing names for prizes. (Note to self: get him a smaller whistle, or don’t let the teams make so many touchdowns. Ouch!) We had 40 students and 20 adults over the course of the evening. This includes a dozen eighth graders who were getting a taste of life in the high school homes. Everyone seemed to have a good time – 49ers fans being the exception, but that wasn’t the group’s fault.

St. Joseph’s Super Bowl party quieted down during halftime. — The Raven’s fans at St. Joseph’s relax during halftime.

House parents did a lot of behind-the-scenes management, from cooking the taco meat and hot wings, to making the veggie trays, to securing coolers, and surreptitiously throwing cans into the recycling bin. But at the end of the night, the kids made short work of taking trash out, sweeping floors and rearranging furniture.

One challenge our team faces this year as a group is commitment. Sometimes members don’t attend meetings or don’t contribute. Sometimes members agree to contribute with great enthusiasm, but time flies and agreements are forgotten. Sometimes, opportunities to grow and serve just don’t take root at all – maybe because of apathy or maybe because some ideas just aren’t as brilliant in the cold light of day as they are on paper.

Some plans get supplanted by more attractive, immediate pleasures like Facebook, basketball games, and afternoon naps. Some commitments get choked out by worries, fears, and problems. Who can think ahead when a loved one back home is ill or the news is full of stories about the end of the world?

Positive opportunities even compete with each other—school, jobs, sports, theater, college visits. A person can get pretty overwhelmed! But every so often, an idea takes root and grows. A small, dedicated core group maintains their determination and focus. They coax their peers into coming along. Sometimes we end up with something unexpectedly special.

The Lakota students cheer for their favorite team during the Super Bowl. — Go Ravens!

So this Monday, I can say that I am proud of my team and their performance. They showed dedication and commitment. They overcame a tough start, and finished the season on a high note. Sometimes they made me kind of nervous, and I wondered if they were going to pull it off. They hung in there! And of course, they have an awesome fan base. This team has dedicated supporters from all over the country. We couldn’t have done this without them cheering us on and having faith in us. Thank you, and thank God!

By the way, who won? I didn’t really have a chance to watch the game….

Claire

A weekend update from Fr. Anthony

Greetings once again!

Fr. Steve is away on a Donor Luncheon to the Santa Barbara, California area, which gives me another chance to share with you what’s been happening here at St. Joseph’s. Initially it seemed like a quiet weekend, but, upon closer inspection, it turned out to be a normal hectic pace with activities happening all over the place!

As you may be aware, last week was Catholic Schools Week around the country. Fr. Steve and I helped with the spelling bee contest for each of the classes in the elementary program. There was a lot of reflection on ‘i before e, except after c,’ and the Lakota students did a great job!

Three of our students will be taking part in the contest that crowns a national champion in Washington, D.C. and the others will take part in a state-wide contest later this month in Mitchell, South Dakota.

The fourth and fifth grades sponsored a Catholic School’s Week food drive to gather items to benefit a local domestic violence shelter and St. James’ parish, which is the local Catholic Church in Chamberlain and is also staffed by an SCJ (Priest of the Sacred Heart).

Afra Home (first, second and third grade girls) went to Lower Brule, South Dakota as part of their social outreach program. They attended Mass and then served the community with cookies and juice. Each student home does some sort of outreach activity for an entity in the local area. As many of our Native American students come from the Crow Creek and Lower Brule Indian Reservations, they like to go back and do something for the elders and their families at home.

On Friday, one of our eighth-grade students, Cassidy, went with the Chamberlain High School gymnastic team to a meet in Wall, South Dakota – home of the famous Wall Drug Store! Chamberlain has a very good team and Cassidy has been part of the JV squad for the past two years. They are looking forward to qualifying for the state competition.

If you recall, I had mentioned that Chamberlain High School had taken part in the state-wide one act play competition. Each team must set the stage, perform and take down their set in 45 minutes or less. This year, they did a play by Mark Twain that dealt with trying to improve prices for an artist’s work by putting out the word he was dead. They performed the play at the regional competition in Pierre, South Dakota, and qualified for the state finals.

Their time slot was 8:00 AM this past Saturday morning. One cast member said it took several alarm clocks to make sure he got up in time! Despite the early time, they gave it their all and won a superior rating. One of the leads, Chris, a St. Joseph’s senior, was singled out for extensive praise by the judges.

Sunday was the feast of St. Blasé, and we had the traditional blessing of the throats for the students and staff at our Sunday morning Mass. In giving the blessing, we ask St. Blasé to intercede and protect those who receive the blessing from any aliment of the throat or other illness.

It was probably good that we did that since there was a lot of screaming and hollering during the Super Bowl later that day. One of our high school homes hosted a Super Bowl party for the other high school homes, and also invited the eighth graders to attend. They split the fans of the two teams so each could cheer watching their own TV. There was a lot of good-natured ribbing back and forth and things really got excited and loud when the 49’ers made their late run to try and catch the Ravens. All sorts of crazy contests—like number of M&Ms in a jar and gag prizes for whenever something special happened in the game – added to the fun.

Saturday gave our fourth, fifth and sixth grade boys’ basketball teams a chance to play their counterparts from Chamberlain. We play each other twice per season, with each side providing the officials for one of the games. This time they were from Chamberlain, which may explain why the swept all three games. The games were close and a good crowd attended.

The weather was crazy as well. On Thursday many areas of the State called off school because the weather was in the minus 30 degree range! Yet, by Sunday, we were back up to the mid 40’s with lots of melting.

I hope you all have a great week ahead and that our loving God will continue to bless and protect you now and always! We are grateful for your interest in and concern for St. Joseph’s and the programs we offer for the Lakota (Sioux) children. Pilamaya – thank you!

Facilities Update

As part of the renovation project, the Summerlee Home will receive some new chairs. — Furniture is ready to take its place in the Summerlee Home!

Our facilities crew is hard at work finishing our remodel projects for the Lakota children at St. Joseph’s Indian School! Here’s an update:

The Summerlee Home is finished other than some minor finishing touches, like hanging bulletin boards and other small jobs. Houseparents are beginning to move some things into the home. The Summerlee girls are planning on spending their first night in their newly renovated home on February 1.

Now that the Summerlee home is complete, we are able to put more staff on the William Home renovation.

12 Lakota (Sioux) girls in fourth and fifth grades live in the recently remodeled Summerlee Home. — The Summerlee Home now has a snack counter where the girls can visit with their houseparents while they’re preparing dinner.

We just finished taping the sheetrock and will begin the texturing process. As soon as that’s done, we can start painting. We have also contacted the ceiling installer and he is scheduled to start installing our ceiling grid the first part of February. The kitchen and bathroom cabinets are under construction in the carpenter’s shop. We hope to have this home completed the first part of April.

The thrift store’s new location is moving along nicely with a completion date in the first part of March. We have just finished painting the retail section of the store and have moved to the back work and storage areas. Contractors are in the process of hanging door frames and the ceiling grid will be placed next week. Once we have our ceiling grids installed, the electricians will be able to start hanging light fixtures. When the lighting and HVAC processes are complete, we will begin installing carpet and inlay flooring for the retail area, changing rooms, bathrooms, break room, and offices.

Birthdays, walking and more!

The Native American boys and girls at St. Joseph’s love celebrating their birthdays with family. — Pearl invited her brother over for her birthday party.

Greetings from the staff and girls of the William Home!

We have been very busy since our return from Christmas break. We had our St. Joseph’s Christmas party the week after the kids came back. Thank you so much to our donors who helped make the students’ Christmas party possible!

Basketball season for the girls is over but that does not mean that things are not busy! The girls are now involved with tumbling and cheerleading weekly. We had two girls with birthdays last week, so we hosted parties for them in the home. Each had some of their friends over for supper and cake. We had a great time!

The Lakota children love receiving presents for their birthdays! — Rose got a Candy Land game for her birthday!

The spelling bee is this week and we’re proud to say four of our girls will participate.

The William Home continues with their walking fitness program and have totaled 13,136 laps, which is just over 656 miles. We are ahead of our pace to reach 15,200 laps by spring break!

Hope you all enjoy the updates from the William Home and we thank you for all that you do for the Lakota children at St. Joseph’s Indian School!