Tag: St. Joseph’s Indian School

New thrift store open for business

St. Joseph’s Thrift Store staff has been working with our Facilities Crew since September 2012 on the remodel of a downtown Chamberlain building built in the 1900’s – formerly a grocery store.

St. Joseph’s Indian School purchased the building in the summer of 2012 with the intention of remodeling the building for a new Thrift Store and center to process in-kind donations.

We started moving in to the new building March 1!

We were grateful our move only took a week. The store opened to the public again on March 11, though there is still some exterior work to be finished once the weather warms up.

We first considered the project because of the lack of storage on campus for the donated items our benefactors so generously send. As we move forward, the plan is to have all donated goods delivered to the new In-Kind Processing Center, which is located downtown in the back part of the new Thrift Store.

Donated goods are sorted into many different categories. The main three are:

  • Campus use
  • Thrift Store
  • Mission Run

First, we make sure the needs of the Lakota students are met. They have first pick of all donated clothing and other items.  If we’re not able to use a particular item on campus (such as baby clothes), then it will go to the thrift store or a reservation outreach. After a certain amount of time, items we have not been able to use are packed up and sent to an outreach on an Indian Reservation near us.

As this project comes to an end, the staff here at the Thrift Store and the processing center would like to thank the Facilities Staff for all the hard work and organization they put into this project.  They have helped make this transition an easy one!

St. Joseph’s new Thrift Store is located on Main Street in Chamberlain, South Dakota.
A mock up of what the storefront will look like when it is 100% complete.

Preparing eighth graders for graduation

We are looking forward to graduation for our eighth grade class in a couple of months. I am proud to say that I have had many of these Lakota students since they were in their younger elementary years at St. Joseph’s Indian School.

St. Joseph’s eighth grade graduates receive a small medicine wheel and feather as a gift.
The Lakota eighth graders craft small medicine wheels, which are a gift to their classmates at graduation.

This time of year, I have the honor of helping them to prepare their class banner, make their medicine wheels (which are used in the graduation ceremony) and prepare them for life after St. Joseph’s.

Each class of Lakota eighth graders creates a banner to commemorate their class.
After graduation, eighth grader banners hang in St. Joseph’s Rec Center.

One of the more enjoyable items I share with them is giving them their eighth grade portfolio.  This portfolio encompasses all of their works from the time they entered my Native American Studies room until they graduate.  It is so fun to hand back papers and watch them look through their past years of learning!  I can hear them sharing their drawings and writings with each other.  The giggles and smiles reinforce the reason I have them create the portfolios.

The students made their personal portfolio out of brown paper bag and yarn.  They are modeled after the par fleche containers Lakota/Dakota/Nakota (Sioux) people used long ago.   The containers from long ago were made of rawhide and sinew.  Today, we make them in a much more inexpensive, modern way.

In the past, the par fleche was decorated with tribal designs specific to one’s tribe and tiyospaye – extended family.  This made it easy to return a lost container to its rightful owner, much like luggage tags today.  The par fleche carries meaning and a lot of knowledge of each St. Joseph’s student.

A visit from Fr. Bob, fellow SCJ

Sunday
Fr. Bob, a member of our Priests of the Sacred Heart religious order, arrived at St. Joseph’s Indian School from Chicago yesterday. Seven inches of heavy wet snow fell on campus Saturday, and Fr. Bob couldn’t make it up the hill to our house! We had to park the car down below and carry suitcases up the hill. One of the houseparents came into morning mass and joked, “Did you pray for this?”
Actually, I have been praying for the moisture we badly need. So many people who work the land have been suffering from drought. Once I heard a native South Dakotan remark that, in other areas, weather forecasters talk of the threat of snow or rain, but here in South Dakota we talk about the promise of snow and rain. We are glad to receive whatever comes! Today the sun came out, the roads started melting, and it was much easier to get around.
After mass, we joined the Afra Home (1st – 3rd grade girls) for weekend brunch to give Fr. Bob a sense of how our Native American students live. Third grader Mariah was a good tour guide as she showed off the home and told Fr. Bob about student activities.
The William Home (4th-5th grade girls) is nearby. Since both homes had many students checked out to go home for the weekend, the two homes joined one another for the meal. Some of the William Home girls started out in Afra, and always enjoy coming back to check in with their former houseparents. The two homes try to do occasional activities together, especially so sisters and cousins can spend quality time together. The older girls enjoy spending time with the younger ones. The tables were filled with conversation and laughter.
Monday
Sunday evening and Monday, the SCJs gathered for our Lenten Recollection time. We were joined by the priests who work on nearby Indian Reservations – Lower Brule and Crow Creek – and here locally in Chamberlain. Fr. Bob’s reflections centered around the Earth, our relationship with creation, and our call to be God’s stewards. Life at St. Joseph’s features constant activity, but Bob’s presence reminded us that we all need to slow down and try to listen for God’s direction and guidance.
After we finished, I went downtown to check on the opening of our new Thrift Store. Chantelle, our manager, said that curious folks had stopped in all day. Some just wanted to see how the former grocery store had been transformed, but once inside, they decided to pick up a few clothes or knick-knacks.
Lena, one of our sophomores was tending the cash register and getting on-the-job experience dealing with the public and earning some spending money. The new store has room to set up nicer displays; the objects near the entry caught people’s eye and needed to be rearranged at first, and restocked by the end of the day.

Meeting the new crew

Our world is changing so much. People are relying less on mail and more on other forms of communication. To meet future needs, we are opening an office in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. Staff at our Donor Care Center will spend much of their time on the phones with our donors and on line responding to the many questions we get via email.
The new crew finished up a week of training last Friday, and I stopped by to meet and greet each of them. To each person I met, I simply said, “Tell me a little about yourself.”
It’s amazing all the directions they took from there and what I learned about folks! Some folks talked more about family, others more about their work experiences. Everyone talked about how it meant a lot to them to be working with a charity like St. Joseph’s Indian School, that has such a positive impact on children in need, and to be part of a bigger outreach to make a difference to families on Indian reservations.
We had a nice leisurely soup and sandwich lunch together before everyone had to go back to work. Maybe you’ll be getting a call from them to say ‘thanks for your help’ sometime soon!

Time flies when you’re having fun!

I can’t believe March is here already and we have started the fourth quarter at St. Joseph’s Indian School. WOW, time really flies when we are having so much fun!
We had a lot of fun when we celebrated Read Across America Day on March 1.

The Lakota students and Fr. Steve read in the hallway to celebrate Dr. Seuss’ birthday.
Fr. Steve joined the Lakota children for reading.

The Lakota students loved the time they were able to spend reading to each other and to Fr. Steve in the school hallways. They also enjoyed ice cream treats at the end of the day.

The Lakota students had lots of fun reading to each other.
We had so much fun celebrating Read Across America Day!

Our eighth grade girls were able to miss a day of school last week and attend GEMS (Girls Engineering Math and Science) in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. They enjoyed not being in school for a day, but the real enjoyment was being able to attend a session on makeup. Imagine that with teenage girls! They also were able to visit other booths related to engineering and science.

Our Native American girls in eighth grade learned about careers in math and science.
Our eighth-grade girls attended GEMS and learned about GIS mapping.

Staff and students are gearing up for St. Joseph’s Spring Break which will start on March 22. We are looking forward to having an educational morning at the Recreation Center doing a Science/Weather program called Tornado Alley, which features a 3D movie! This will be a great start to Spring Break.

When the students return on Easter Monday, they will return to an Easter Egg hunt for the younger students (Grade 1-5) and the older students (Grades 6-8) will have a picnic dinner in the Fisher Home driveway, weather permitting. Considering our weather the past few weekends has been snow and rain, we will hope and pray for better weather on Easter weekend.

The staff would like to thank all of our donors for the help, support and encouragement that our students receive throughout the year.
“Experience Jesus’ presence each moment. Pray as you enter each place, welcoming Christ to touch and to heal. Embrace God and the way God touches your life again and again.”

St. Joseph’s Mentor Program

Mentor matches provide the Lakota students a positive role model in their lives.
Delores and Kaelyn love spending time together!
Hello, our names are Celia and Dee and we oversee the Children Count Mentor Program at St. Joseph’s Indian School. The mentor program was established in 2001 to match a Lakota student with a positive adult staff member.
The goal of the program is to establish a positive relationship between adults and children, and to have a positive impact on Native American youth by actively participating in their lives. These relationships can help children compensate for early experiences and protect them from the influences of social toxicity, negative peer groups and media violence.
Currently, we have 48 student/adult mentor matches.
Students at St. Joseph’s are referred to the mentor program by their counselor because they lack one-on-one contact with an adult – they may not have a family member who can check them out for an evening or weekend – or because they would benefit from a positive relationship with adults who actively participates in their lives.
The mentor committee hosts five events throughout the school year. Some of these events include a picnic, movie night, roller-skating, a Christmas get-together and bowling.
Everyone has a great time!
In addition to these organized events, staff spend 2-6 hours per month individually with their match. Some activities that students enjoy with their mentors are going out to eat, attending local sporting events, going for walks, making cookies and doing crafts, just to name a few.
Thank you for your support of this great program!

Offering prayers, comfort

As a parish priest, I frequently made the rounds in hospitals. I haven’t had the occasion here at St. Joseph’s Indian School to do that very often, but today I did.

Fifth grader Kendra went to the health center complaining of a bad stomachache. A few hours later, she was in surgery to remove her appendix. Her mom was with her when I got to the room. Kendra had just woken up from the anesthesia and was enjoying a popsicle. We prayed and I let her know we had a whole bunch of Lakota students back at school asking how she was doing and keeping her in their prayers as well. I didn’t stay very long, since what most patients need is rest and recovery time. Hopefully, she will be back running the playground in short order.

In the halls of the hospital, I ran into a family I knew from Fort Thompson, South Dakota, which is about 25 miles from Chamberlain. The two daughters asked me to stop in and visit their aging mother, who had a host of health problems. We chatted for a while and then prayed.

Next, I ran into a man from the Crow Creek Indian Reservation whom I didn’t know, but he saw the collar and asked for prayers for his family as well. A listening ear and a brief prayer can comfort and help heal. Ultimately, though, we place our loved ones in God’s hands.

Learning about poetry with Linea

The older Lakota students enjoy reading to younger children on Dr. Seuss’ birthday.
My sixth grade reading students reading to a fourth grader.

Another quarter is coming to an end at St. Joseph’s Indian School; the year is going by fast!  In my reading classes, we have wrapped up the units on nonfiction and have ventured in to the world of poetry.

It is a nice change for the Lakota students because they are introduced to not only serious poetry, but also poetry that lets them enter fantasy land.  They learn about the different elements of poetry including imagery, metaphors, similes, rhyme, rhythm, repetition, and alliteration.

The forms of poetry they are introduced to are narrative poems, free verse poems, and concrete poems.  We are hoping that they will be able to relate the themes expressed in these poems to their own lives and to the world around them.

On Friday, March 1, we celebrated Dr. Seuss’s birthday.  This is always a fun day for the students, especially the younger ones.  The students are allowed to wear PJ’s to school and we set aside a time in the afternoon for the older students to get together with the younger students and read Dr. Seuss books to them.   My reading class looks forward to this especially if they have a younger sibling.

Linea – 6-8 Grade Reading Teacher

Do you have a favorite Dr. Seuss book?

Friday, St. Joseph’s Indian School celebrated Dr. Seuss’ birthday by a special reading time at the end of the school day. If they wanted to, the Lakota students got to wear pajamas to school. Older students paired up with younger ones, brothers and sisters together where possible, sat on the hallway floor, and read from the vast library of Theodore Geisel’s well-known children’s books.

Fr. Steve joined the Lakota (Sioux) boys and girls to read Dr. Seuss books.
Fr. Steve’s wild pajamas got a few laughs from the Lakota children!

I drew a few laughs with the wild PJ outfit I pulled out of the closet. We talk about being a ‘fool for Christ’ and sometimes you just have to get silly and have fun with the kids. I was reading with Caden for a while, who is a sharp student, but he just wasn’t getting into the books. I tried to get him to read with more animation and fun, so each of us took turns with a page, trying to be more excited and dramatic. He has a bit of ham in him, and he finally got going with the rhyming and tongue in cheek humor that makes those books so memorable. My favorite is Green Eggs and Ham.

Do you have a favorite Dr. Seuss book?

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 (1st–3rd grade boys) took first place, second place went to William Home (4th-5th grade girls) and Speyer Home (6th-8th 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!