St. Joseph’s students are back from break and will celebrate Christmas this Sunday!
Before Christmas break, St. Joseph’s students got into the Christmas spirit by getting busy in the kitchen! In Personal Living Skills class, students baked cookies, made our famous Oreo truffles and peanut butter balls. They had a fun time decorating and using lots of sprinkles!
Christmas is a lot more than baking and exchanging gifts though. It is about giving and being thankful for what we have and being with the ones we love the most.
Sadly, there are many people who cannot be with their loved ones during the holidays or some who cannot provide for their families at Christmas because of different circumstances. The seventh graders worked on a community service project to try and give back to people in need.
After some discussion, they decided that making baby blankets and donating them to the Chamberlain women’s shelter would not only keep babies warm, but would warm many hearts, too.
Being a part of this community service project was an excellent way for our students to give back this Holiday season and was a great addition to the food drive put on by the Student Leaders at St. Joseph’s Indian School.
Wopila tanka – many thanks – for the generosity you show the Lakota children which allows them to show generosity to others!
April has worked with the Lakota children at St. Joseph’s for seven years.
My name is April and I have been an employee at St. Joseph’s Indian School for seven years. I am a Level II Alcohol and Drug Counselor and have been in the field for 24 years. I am an enrolled member of the Crow Creek Sioux Tribe from Fort Thompson, South Dakota.
When I first started at St. Joseph’s, I worked with families and provided support for our Family Service Counselors in different ways. I have also worked with the FAST program. This year we are beginning the search for a new family program that will benefit the students we work with.
But I do lots of other things too!
I help with the cultural trip in May for students moving from seventh to eighth grades. We set out from Chamberlain and make our way to Lame Deere, Montana, with several stops along the way. This is a wonderful, fun, educational trip not only for the students, but for staff as well. I think the most exciting part for the students is climbing Bear Butte.
I have had the opportunity to be part of our “Healing Camp” held each March. This daylong activity is for students who have lost a family member. It helps begin the healing process, not only for our students, but staff who participate as well. It touches my heart to know that we are working as a team and getting to know each other more and more. I feel that, with each new year, I am building stronger friendships and professional relationships with each and every person who crosses my path on my every day walk of life.
My newest task is helping with the Lakota Circle of Hope (LCH), which is a drug and alcohol prevention curriculum. I enjoy working on it with the little free spirits in third and fourth grades. The activities focus on the critical need for drug and alcohol prevention lessons targeted at children in second through fifth grades. The program specifically targets Native American children by teaching prevention lessons through the use of Lakota/Dakota culture.
Each year, April is part of the cultural trip for St. Joseph’s seventh graders moving into eighth grade.
I will always remember the first day I came to St. Joseph Indian School, and there was Fr. Steve offering a hug and welcoming me to St. Joseph’s tiyospaye – extended family. It was very heartwarming and I always will hold this memory close to my cante’ – heart.
I would like to tell everyone at St. Joseph’s Indian School wopila/wopida tanka – many thanks – for all lessons I have learned while working here and all the support I have received as part of this tiyospaye!
I’m not sure if ‘visions of sugarplums danced in their heads,’ but the eyes of our Lakota students were wide and happy last weekend as they came to the Christmas Store to pick out gifts for their family members at home.
Shakia found stuffed animals for her younger siblings!
Each year, St. Joseph’s receives items that can’t be used on campus for one reason or another, or we have enough to go around – things like baby clothing, stuffed animals, knick-knacks or blankets. These items can be ‘purchased’ by the students during our Christmas Store.
With guidance from an older student or staff member, they find their treasures and volunteers help wrap. Students have their pictures taken with Santa and there are goodies for everyone. It’s a wonderful day!
We are so grateful for your generosity in providing gently used gift items! Your kindness allows us to teach our students to be kind and generous to others. The children are so thrilled to be able to share a gift, and that is a lesson that truly lasts a lifetime. We wish you could have seen the joy! Read more about the Christmas Store.
As Christmas draws closer and preparations for presents and parties are made, we also remember the reason we celebrate – the birth of Jesus. St. Joseph’s pastoral staff is offering an Advent Reconciliation Prayer Service to give our students the opportunity for the Sacrament of Confession or – for those who are not Catholic – to have the chance to talk about their relationship with God if they wish.
We try to remind our students that Advent is a time of preparation – not just making plans for Christmas but also getting ourselves ready inside so that there will be room for the Christ child in our hearts.
On the sports front, we had the end of the girls’ basketball season as the 7th and 8th grade girls’ teams journeyed to Miller, South Dakota last night. The 7th graders won in overtime and the 8th graders fell by 4.
Older students and staff volunteers helped the Lakota children wrapped their gifts.
High school basketball has started and there are 14 St. Joseph’s boys on the Chamberlain High School basketball team this year! Last week, they held a Red & White scrimmage at St. Joseph’s gym for everyone to come and watch.
The coach is very excited about the commitment of St. Joseph’s players. He spoke to our younger Native American students, urging them to focus on their studies and basketball skills so they too might be part of the team someday. The high school basketball season kicks off tonight with a trip to Gregory, South Dakota – Go Cubs!
This past Sunday was also the end of the boys’ inter-city basketball league. Inter-city is a mixture of players from St. Joseph’s and the local Chamberlain area. The championship game was a nail biter! It came down to the final seconds with the victors winning only by one point. There will be an inter-city season for the girls after Christmas break.
Weather permitting, I hope to be able to head to Texas to visit my mother for Christmas, so this may be my last blog for a week or so. I want to take this opportunity to extend best wishes for a very Merry Christmas and a blessed, healthy and Happy New Year to you and yours from all the students and staff at St. Joseph’s Indian School! May the Great Spirit reward and bless you all for your generosity!
What a difference a week makes! You may recall how I was saying it was still nice weather-wise here at St. Joseph’s. However, the bottom fell out this past week.
Fr. Anthony spends time with St. Joseph’s students.
We got over 5 inches of snow and the temperature went down, down, down…
The Daily Republic, a daily newspaper in Mitchell, South Dakota (about 70 miles from Chamberlain), leads off the news the other day with an article on how the area has set low temperatures that broke a 105-year-old record.
Chamberlain was even mentioned on the radio when we hit 14 degrees below zero. The cold has had an effect on some of our water lines and has brought about a drip in the rec center ceiling. Our Lakota students do not seem to mind, however, and love to be out sledding as long as they can.
A big thank you goes out to our maintenance crew on campus! They are quick to clear paths so our students can get to school and staff can get to work when we have snow.
We moved our regular Sunday Mass to Saturday evening so the Dancing Dolls & Dudes had Sunday morning to get ready for their recital in the early afternoon. There was a great turnout for the dance presentations, which includes kids from the Chamberlain and surrounding communities; dancers as young as 3 and 4 year olds up through sixth graders took part.
When I drove up to the National Guard Armory, where the performance was held, I felt like St. Joseph’s Indian School was a visiting basketball team. So many of our Native American students were participating and watching, we had our large yellow bus and one or two of our smaller buses parked in from of the Armory!
Seems hard to believe, but our girls’ basketball season is drawing to a close. Our last home games for our younger grades are this week. Last Saturday, the 8th grade girls hosted their annual basketball tournament. The snow prevented some of the teams from coming, but the rec center hosted a round robin tournament and we came in third.
Hope you all have a great week and that you are able to take advantage of the Advent Season and prepare the way of the Lord.
It has been another wonderful week in the neighborhood – the weather has been great!
The campus was very quiet this weekend since the Lakota students and St. Joseph’s staff were on Thanksgiving break. I helped chaperone the bus that took the students to their homes in Eagle Butte and Pierre, South Dakota. It was good to meet some of the students’ families and everyone seemed very upbeat to be home for the holiday.
St. James Parish and Fr. Guy Blair, SCJ, hosted their second annual Thanksgiving meal open to anyone in the community. It was an outstanding success and served over 400 people. They had over a 150 takeout orders for people unable to leave their homes. It was nice to see that a wide variety of locals join together to help others.
Friday after Thanksgiving kicked off the Christmas season with the annual Parade of Lights in downtown Chamberlain. Some very bright and inventive floats brought out a lot of oohs and aahs from spectators who braved the chilly evening.
St. Joseph’s Indian School was blessed with the presence of a bald eagle that sat high in a tree along the banks of the Missouri River. It was a majestic sight. Deer hunting season opened recently in our area, which may explain why I’ve seen seven deer on three separate occasions within the last 10 days or so. They seem to know there will not be any shooting on campus.
This coming weekend will be the Dancing Dolls & Dudes program. St. Joseph’s students have been involved in this over the last few years. It will definitely be one of those Kodak moments!
Hope you have a great week and that God’s blessings will be with you throughout the new month as we prepare for the birth of the Prince of Peace.
From all the students and staff here at St. Joseph’s Indian School, best wishes to you and yours for a very Happy Thanksgiving!
Each of us has so much to be grateful for. May you have the chance to share the day with family and friends!
The Lakota boys and girls made “trees of thanksgiving” to take home to their families.
St. Joseph’s students are getting in the Thanksgiving spirit as they took part in the National Family Week project this past Wednesday. They joined with siblings and cousins to make decorations to take home for their families on Thanksgiving. You can see our photos on Facebook!
They created a “tree of thanksgiving,” with leaves the students wrote messages on, expressing what they are grateful for. Thanks to a grant from the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in Minnesota, each family receives a gift card for their local grocery store to help provide food for the Thanksgiving meal. In the past, students took food boxes home with them, but the new system works wonderfully.
Three of our Lakota (Sioux) students had the chance to visit Washington, D.C. last week. Their family was honored by the United States for the role their great-grandfather played as a code-talker during World War II. As you might know, during that time Native American radio operators spoke in their native tongues so that German or Japanese troops listening would not understand what military information was being passed from one unit to another.
While these students were in Washington, D.C., another group of our students and staff were in the Houston, Texas, area to take part in a donor luncheon this past weekend. Kayla and Hope, two of our eighth graders, made the trip to share the impact St. Joseph’s has had on their lives. Our next two luncheons are January 18-19 in Los Angeles, California and February 22-23 in Cocoa Beach, Florida. If you would like to attend, you can register here.
I attended an ecumenical Thanksgiving prayer service held at St. James Catholic Church in downtown Chamberlain. It was nice to gather with others and be thankful. On Thanksgiving Day, the parish will host a Thanksgiving meal for anyone in the Chamberlain area who wishes to attend.
On Friday night, the day after Thanksgiving, there will be a presentation on Thanksgiving from a Native American viewpoint. The presenter will be Deacon Bud Jetty’s son, who is an educator from Montana. Deacon Bud serves on St. Joseph’s Board of Directors, and he and his wife are long-time friends of the school.
Last week we received word that 129 visitor-related businesses in South Dakota had been awarded the Great Service Star. The program is sponsored by the South Dakota Department of Tourism to recognize South Dakota businesses that show exceptional customer service to guests, customers or visitors. I am happy to inform you that St. Joseph’s Akta Lakota Museum and Cultural Center received the award. Visit their Facebook page to congratulate them!
Have a great Thanksgiving! May the holidays bring many blessings to you and your loved ones!
First of all, our thoughts and prayers are with those in the Midwest who experienced such awful weather over the weekend. The loss of life and destruction are truly tragic.
Chamberlain High School presented their annual play this past weekend, Father of the Bride. Two of St. Joseph’s high school students were in the cast and four were part of the stage and lighting crew. As an added bonus, St. Joseph’s students Amber and Ashley created the set designs! In Dramatic Arts class, the director divided students into teams of two and let them come up with design ideas for the play. Amber and Ashley’s design was chosen – way to go, girls!
Basketball season is underway at St. Joseph’s, and the Lakota girls in 4th through 8th grade have taken to the hardwood courts. On Saturday, the 4th, 5th and 6th graders played their counterparts from Chamberlain Elementary. There was a good turnout of family and friends on both sides to cheer them on.
The Chamberlain girls had some tall players, but St. Joseph’s girls had some real spunk and a ‘never say die’ attitude that helped them come back from early deficits and secure victory in the 4th and 6th grade games by one point each. The 5th graders, unfortunately, came up just 4 points short. This week, all our teams will be on the road playing schools in the local area.
I had a nice surprise during the basketball games on Saturday. I got to visit with the mother of a current student who was a student here herself in the late 1990’s. Fancee was a star basketball player at St. Joseph’s. Now, she is married with four children and works as a police detective on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation.
She shared that her time at St. Joseph’s Indian School really prepared her for working with the Native American youth whom she now encounters in her profession. It was truly great to visit with her and hear how her years at St. Joseph’s helped her prepare for the future!
I hope each of you has a great week and that God’s blessings remain with you. Pilamaya – thank you – for your concern and generosity towards the Native American students at St. Joseph’s Indian School. Know that you and your intentions have been remembered in our Novena of Masses, November 11-19.
We had a little dusting of snow early this morning. With the leaves still on the ground, it makes for a slippery situation. I’m sure the students were not in mad dashes across St. Joseph’s campus today.
First of all, Happy Veterans Day! A big pilamaya – thank you – to all who made the commitment to serve in the Armed Forces of our country to keep us protected and free.
There is a Veterans’ Day powwow in Lower Brule today. LaRayne, our Native American Studies teacher, took 10 drummers and 5 dancers to take part. The Summerlee Home (4th and 5th grade girls) went up yesterday to join in the festivities and enjoy a meal with the community.
Friday night, several of our staff represented St. Joseph’s Indian School in a fundraiser for the Chamberlain School District Foundation. It was loosely based on an Old Fashioned Community Spelling Bee. Nine different teams took part in the event at the city civic center, which was recently rebuilt.
It was an open house for the new facility and a chance to raise some money for an outdoor classroom for the Chamberlain school system. The teams had fun as they competed in spelling, puns, scrabble and penmanship. While the MC stated ‘this might be the first and last spelling bee,’ it seemed everyone had fun and even the audience was able to take part.
I hope you all have a great week. We continue to keep you in our prayers, asking God to bless and reward you for your generosity to the Lakota children at St. Joseph’s.
Fr. Anthony Kluckman, SCJ
I hope everyone had a great week and lots of fun on Halloween. The Lakota students capped off their celebration of Red Ribbon week — a time focused on reminding them of the danger of drugs — with some spooky fun, wearing costumes to school and trick-or-treating on campus. The students then gathered in the rec center for the Grand March and judging of costumes. There were awards for scariest, funniest and most creative costume, along with awards for pumpkin carving and home decorations. Check out the fun on our Facebook album!
St. Joseph’s students capped off Red Ribbon Week with Halloween fun!
Our High School Academic Advisor, Tara, announced the members of the 2013 Lakota Nation Invitational (LNI) Knowledge Bowl team. LNI is an annual event held before Christmas each year in Rapid City, South Dakota. It gathers members of the Lakota nation from all over the state and surrounding areas to compete in a wide variety of events — basketball, archery, an art show, Native American hand games, language contests and the Knowledge Bowl. Our students, Erica, Ashley, Michael, Cody, Kyran, Liliana, Jacob and Angela will meet every Sunday night until the competition to practice.
The CHS volleyball team – including some St. Joseph’s students – hosts Cheyenne-Eagle Butte on Tuesday in the state playoffs. This will be a tough one to watch since I spent five years in Eagle Butte serving on the Cheyenne River Indian Reservation; but since I’m now in Chamberlain, I have to say ‘Go Cubs!’
As the weather is changing and cooling down, St. Joseph’s students are spending more time indoors. We recently held sign up for archery and wrestling. The younger students are also getting ready for Dancing Dolls and Dudes.
With the end of the first quarter, we acknowledged our honor roll students in grades 1-8. Students received certificates and a special prize for A and B Honor Roll and for perfect attendance.
Have a great week. Know that you and your intentions are remembered in our prayers. Thank you for your generosity!
The pheasant hunting season opened in South Dakota over this past weekend and it sounded like the hunters were out doing their best. I heard several shots across the river as we finished Mass Sunday morning.
We are in a period of transition at St. Joseph’s Indian School now, as the fall sports wrap up and the students get ready for the indoor basketball season. Yesterday, the girls in fourth through eighth grades signed up for their basketball teams.
The boys will start having their inter-city league on Sundays. This program blends students from Chamberlain with St. Joseph’s Lakota students on teams that are made up of sixth, seventh and eighth grade boys. It is a way for the students to make new friends before they meet up as classmates in high school. The first game will be Sunday, October 27. The girls will have their inter-city season after the holidays.
Several of our seventh and eighth grade boys have joined the local Explorers Club in Chamberlain, which gives them the opportunity to be part of a service group. They do various community projects throughout the year to raise money – raking leaves, shoveling snow and a car wash, to name a few. Then, the boys decide as a group who or what cause would be a worthy recipient of the funds. Last year they donated their money to several local people who were dealing with cancer.
They also remember to have some fun! The group has taken trips to a Minnesota Vikings football game and a Colorado Rockies baseball game.
Students who are new to St. Joseph’s are taking part in a program called ‘co-pilot,’ which matches them with another student to help them belong, enjoy and develop relationships at St. Joseph’s. It parallels our big brothers/big sisters program.
From my office, I can see the students playing outside after school. Kids will be kids, and it warms my heart to see them play games like Red Rover, Red Rover and tetherball. With Halloween just around the corner, many students are also busy getting their costumes ready.
