Gang and drug prevention organization getting started in the community

Over the past month I have been attending some meetings with a few community members busily organizing a nonprofit that will aim to help improve the health of Lac Courte Oreilles and its surrounding neighbors. There is a serious drug problem here; we've been losing at least one community member a month to drugs by way of overdoses, or the mixing of prescription narcotics with alcohol, or suicide and the problem continues to increase. Some months there are several deaths. And these are young people between the ages of 15 up to 45. Much too young to leave because of something that could have been prevented.

Bugo Ganay Giizhig (Hole in the Sky) was the idea of Justin Gordon over 15 years ago and only now becoming a reality in our community. Justin took a long and burdening path to get to this point where he finally said, "enough already, no more." He, himself, became a drug addict as a teenager and only got himself clean just over a year ago.

A team that includes myself, Justin, Shondel Barber, Angie Wolfe and Curtis DeCora, have been meeting and crafting a plan that involves creating a referral service hotline at 1-844-TELLBUG, which will be active in a few days, as well as a website at TELLBUG.org, which also will be live in a few days. Once the website is up, you'll be able to visit that site and find out all the current activities we have planned in the new few months which include fundraisers but also development of a program that will serve the people most in need, at-risk youth.

I can tell you that we are all very excited about the overall strategy of what we're implementing and can't wait to get everything fully operational and begin serving our community. We feel strongly that we're going to make a positive difference in the lives of many of our people. The energy levels of each one of us is infectious, and it all started with Justin and his ambition to make this happen. I advise anyone that wants to get involved to just let us know, we are looking for volunteers to help plan and coordinate several major events coming up, which include our Sweetheart Supper on Valentine's Day and the Northland's Got Talent competition on April 2 at the Park Theater in Hayward. This event will be a lot of fun and will be set up like the TV show America's Got Talent, with celebrity judges and all. We'll also be looking for volunteers to help us with our services that we'll be offering.

We also currently have a fundraiser going this Thursday at the LCO Tribal Office serving Squeezer's Lemonade and philly cheesesteaks and burgers served with several different flavored toppings which include pepperoni pizza, 3 cheese and chili, bell pepper, provolone and cheez wiz. Some awesome food for an awesome cause, make sure to stop by and get some.

Also, our team members are out selling raffle tickets for a fundraiser drawing that will be held at our food fundraiser on January 7 at the tribal office at 2:00 pm. There's only 100 tickets to be sold at $20 each with one lucky $1000 winner. Stop by Circle of Life Home Health office across from the LCO Country Store and see Shondel Barber if you'd like to get a ticket and support this new cause.

Here is our latest press release about the community meeting that Justin organized last week;

(Hayward) A community meeting was held at the LCO Tribal Office Peter Larson Room on Tuesday, December 8, to introduce a new start-up nonprofit organization aimed at drug and gang prevention in the region.

Bugo Ganay Giizhig (Hole in the Sky), with a slogan of “a brighter path awaits,” was founded by Justin Gordon, and what started out as a dream of his 15 years ago when he was just 13 years old, is now quickly becoming a reality.

Gordon welcomed several community leaders, which included the Sawyer County Sheriff Mark Kelsey and Hayward Police Chief Joel Clapero, members of LCO Family Services, two tribal council members, and representing the Hayward School District was Asst. Principal Doug Stark.

Gordon started out the meeting recognizing his late uncle, Geronimo Wade, as a co-founder of the organization. He said that Geronimo was a major inspiration for him to start Bugo Ganay Giizhig after he had cleaned himself up from drug addiction.

“He encouraged me even when I was having my own problems,” Gordon said.

Gordon told the group that he had first wanted to start a nonprofit to help kids stay off drugs when he, himself was just a young teenager and witnessed first-hand, the effects of it on the LCO community. He started Bugo Ganay Giizhig back then, raised funds, got press coverage and started to assist some kids, but support from the leaders of the community at the time didn’t come and Gordon gave up.

“It wasn’t long after that, I turned to drugs and led a life of abuse, myself.”

Gordon said he has been clean and sober for over a year now and that was why he decided it was time he try to give back by helping people avoid living a life of drugs and gangs which leads to many problems.

Gordon said that he started posting on Facebook about his goals to get the nonprofit started again and received widespread support. He said some questioned his past drug abuse, “And one of the hardest things I had ever done was to come forward and be open about it, and I told my story on Facebook. Many only knew I had some problems with crack, but they didn’t know that I was using meth and heroin. It was bad and I was going nowhere.”

After making posts on Facebook to get support for his goals, he quickly had a team put together of community members who believed in the plan and wanted to help him get it started.

Gordon then explained what services his organization would offer. In the beginning, a hotline will be set up and widely promoted. The hotline will act as a referral service for any person in the community who needs help, such as drug or gang prevention, suicide and domestic abuse and even homelessness in the community, where someone could find assistance. Gordon recognized that there are currently services along these lines that are offered, but not one all-in-one hotline that would have all the different agencies throughout the county listed in one place. The hotline would help direct people to the right place and 24-hours a day.

“This is a service we plan to have up and running just after the first of the year,” Gordon said.

By spring of 2016, he plans to have other parts of the program up and running, which include a teen support program where kids participate in a drug and gang-free program which includes volunteerism, counseling, employment assistance, assistance in achieving a diploma or furthering their education and community service. Kids earn rewards as they are participating in the program such as feasts, awards and some kids who have excelled will even earn trips. The program will also award scholarships.

“With the rewards program, once-a-year, we’ll have community members choose from our kids at least two of them to go on an all-expense paid trip with their families. This will show them the community’s appreciation to their commitment of staying sober,” Gordon said. “Hopefully with the incentives and the community’s involvement, it will encourage more kids to participate in the program.”

Gordon said he came up with these ideas for the plan by going out into the community when he was just 13 and talking with kids. “I just asked them, why do you do this? They always answered that there was just nothing for us to do.”

Gordon said that in addition to these services, the organization would have a program to renovate or build parks, playgrounds and skate parks to create more activities for kids to do. He said that the volunteerism and community service parts of this plan would involve these kids actually doing the work and then following up to maintain the parks. He said that Bugo Ganay Giizhig also plans to organize sporting events and activities in the community. Gordon said he believes that providing more opportunities in sports for our youth will also help them avoid wrong behavior.

Gordon said he also wants to see the Sawyer County Court system utilize his program as an alternative to sending young people to jail when the offenses are less serious. Gordon told the group that he believes a lot of times, sending people to jail only teaches them how to become better criminals rather than rehabilitate them. A program like this may help them to not become repeat offenders, he said.

Gordon said his team has held several meetings already and are in the process of waiting on their articles of incorporation, preparing to file for 501(c)3 status and planning fundraisers, which include crowdfunding, several major events and other projects.

“We have two major events planned for this winter which are a Northland’s Got Talent competition at the Park Theater on April 2, with celebrity judges and everything, just like the show, but our own local version, and we’re having a Sweetheart Supper event on Valentine’s Day at the Flat Creek Eatery. More information will be coming out soon,” Gordon said.

Luann Kolumbus of LCO Indian Child Welfare said that she wanted to pat Justin on the back for starting a program like this because it’s long overdue. She said that there are over 100 kids in the LCO community out of their homes because of drugs.

“Drugs are running rampant in our community and it’s out of control and it has to start somewhere,” Luann said. She offered to help get a motorcycle ride fundraiser going for the group next summer.

Diane Sullivan told Gordon to make sure to heal himself first, then family, then the community, then the world. She told him to keep moving forward with his recovery because people will look at his past. She told him to knock on the doors of corporations and ask them to help.

Shondel Barber, who is part of Justin’s first board of directors, said that she wanted to get involved because, “drugs are killing people in our community, when is it going to stop? Our nonprofit is going to struggle in the beginning but it’s going to be huge and I wanted to be a part of that.”

Angie Wolfe also spoke to the group. She is also part of the board of directors.

“I have struggled to maintain sobriety but I don’t want my daughter to do drugs, or any of my family and my community. I want to be a role model for my daughter and when I saw Justin post it on Facebook, I said I wanted to be a part of that. I figured I could be a voice for other addicts.”

If you have any questions about Bugo Ganay Giizhig you can call Justin at 218-491-0052.

Off-Reservation Elders upset over cut to their annual Christmas checks

Over the past couple of weeks, off-Rez tribal elders have been receiving their Christmas checks and getting quite a surprise. For many years our elders were given $150 every year, and that included all elders whether they lived on the Rez or off, whether they were 60 or 80, or full blood or 1/8. It didn't matter, but this year the tribal council decided to give off-Rez elders only $50, cutting an expected $100 from their check, and this was done without warning.

There was quite an uproar on Facebook on a large group page dedicated to LCO members, with some people under the impression that the LCO Elders Council had made this change, when in fact, it was the LCO Tribal Council and the elders council had nothing to do with it. I spoke with Jason Weaver of the council last month and he mentioned that the council had to find a way to cut $1 million from the budget in order to meet the escalating casino bond payment that was taken out back in 2006. This is a monthly payment that our tribe has to make or we'll lose management of our casino and any revenues to the bond holders. The payment increases each year and in 2016, the payment amount is expected to exceed the amount of monthly revenues the casino takes in. You can read all about the bond payment here http://lcotoday.blogspot.com/2015/03/casino-bond-needs-to-be-restructuredor.html

Anyways, this cut to the off-Rez elders is most likely part of the overall strategy to cut $1 million from the budget and save our casino from default. The problem was the tactic and the delivery that upset so many of our tribal members. Some felt that all tribal elders should receive a pay cut rather than a specific group. And, people were also upset that they weren't given a heads up.

One member who lives in Milwaukee wrote a great commentary on the issue and posted it to the Facebook page, but in it he questioned that the LCO Elders Council had made this decision because that's what so many were saying on the other Facebook threads, and this was because some elders who were asking questions were told by members of the council that it was the decision of the elders council, but this wasn't true and Vern Martin, a member of the elders council made a post on the Facebook page saying that the elders council had nothing to do with this. He said if it were up to the elders council it would have never happened. The issue did cause quite a divide between elders.

Jason Northern, LCO citizen, the Milwaukee member wrote a second commentary and I'm going to print that post in its entirety because he makes some great points about our people needing to come together and makes a few suggestions. He also discusses his research into the new wording in our tribal constitution calling our people citizenship rather than membership.

First off I would to apologize to the elder council. If the elder council was not involved with the decision, then I sincerely and truly to do apologize and to anyone else I might have offended. It was not my intentions to attack anyone or to single anyone out. I did not condone all the mudslinging on individual people that followed, that kind of stuff gets us nowhere. My intentions were to bring to light what is a clear divide with our people, which was made evident with some of the following comments.
My intention as a whole, is for all of us as a tribe to figure out how to come together. It’s very disheartening when I see people bickering and it sounds like “us vs them”. We are a shattered and scattered people. People that come together on a common issue can accomplish great things, especially for something they feel proud to be apart of. Its basic human concept, theres strength in numbers. Its time we start trying to bring these scattered pieces back together and make us whole as it will ever be.
Our people had to endure a lot of change over the years. It will never be like how it was back in the old days, as much as we like to talk about how it was, the sad reality is we can’t live that way anymore. But it doesn’t mean we’re suppose to forget, we will always be Anishinaabe, we will always remember the culture, language, stories and teachings. A revitalization of our culture is happening as we speak, our language is being taught in elementary schools, I am current taking Anishinaabemowin at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee. This is revolutionary! So now is not the time to allow us to fracture some more as a people, we are going to need every piece to survive as a Nation. Because we need to take into consideration that the worlds population is increasing exponentially, its growing with or without us.
How do we bring people together? That is a tough question, but since I opened my big fat mouth and went on a rant the other day, some of you were probably saying “where’s all your big ideas?” which is understandable. I did some thinking for ideas on how to get people together and this is what I came up with. Since we can not exactly live they way our ancestors did, we could still do some of the things they did and one of them is farming. Agriculture is huge business and I don’t just mean your average farm, I also mean aquaponics and indoor gardening as well as outdoor farms. You don’t need huge acres of land anymore to grow lots of vegetables. Also I mean serious gardening and not marijuana, not that I’m against it, its just not realistic at the moment.
I say farming because it offers jobs for both kids and adults. And teaching kids how grow their own food is a skill you can’t put a value on. During the summers there could be farming camps similar to the berry camps and maple camps etc, where kids from all over the country can spend a few weeks on a farm learning about culture, language, nutrition and traditional farming techniques. When it all boils down to it, it starts with the kids, the only way we will survive is if we can keep our youth interested and educated. Also we need to give these kids purposes, thats why kids join gangs because they want to feel like they belong to something. Anyone who has kids can tell you that they just want to feel like they’re helping and giving them jobs mixed with cultural teachings can make them feel like they’re apart of something huge while helping to make a difference. How many off reservation families would let their kids go to such a camp on LCO for a couple of weeks, to learn about culture, basic farming, nutrition, language, and overall to develop a sense of pride for something?Remember we are the PRIDE OF THE OJIBWE! lets instill that back into the kids.(I’d like to see responses on this)
By growing our own food we can get on a track of being self sustaining. As a Nation, we need to seriously consider what will happen if civilization collapsed. As ridiculous as that sounds its still a realization that is not completely out of the question. I mentioned earlier the worlds population is growing and on top of all that the worlds freshwater supply is running out and no bullshit, we live in one of the last places in the WORLD! with freshwater, these are FACTS, not fear mongering or speculation. This is speculation but its not that far fetched, there might be time when we won’t be able to buy our food, just something to think about. So I digress, it seems that from reading everyones comments, the consensus was the blame is on council.
Blaming council is common, especially since there isn’t any checks and balances, so council should understand why they get blamed so much. This is one thing I will say to council, give up some of your power. You know we need checks and balances in the government, you had the same complaints when you weren’t council. You can make a real difference, giving up some that power will give people hope that real change is possible. But my issue is not with this council or any people for that matter, my issue is with the way of thinking. For any real change to be done, the way some people think has to change. There shouldn’t be a thought of those that live off reservation are looked at differently.
As someone mentioned in the comment thread, council changed us from members to citizens and I remember hearing about that from the meeting but I didn’t put much thought to it. Alright with any legal document everything comes down to the wording and why would they specifically change the wording from member to citizen? And since this is written in the English language, same as it is in every treaty to the constitution, very specific wording makes all the difference. Now I am going to speculate and so if I am wrong with my assumptions I want anyone to tell me I am wrong or full of shit and then tell me why I am. Because I want to promote open dialogue and not senseless arguing.
“Citizen” is a very specific word, when compared to the word “member” both can seem to mean the same thing but the word “member” is more broad. Now forgive me for my cliche google searches, on the word “member”, http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/member and these sites you can look yourself and others, granted its only one source but I have no control of these sites. Thats why I say prove this to be wrong I want to be wrong, please discern for yourselves. Anyways from reading this, “member” means lots of things, but the overall meaning of it is to be apart of something that is whole. Also meaning an object that is missing a member of its body is not whole. A look up of the word “citizen” http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/citizen they both have a similar meaning but citizen has one key word that follows it through the different meanings all the way to the origin of it and that word is “inhabitant”.
Now we all know what inhabitant means but what does the word “citizen” mean to you now after doing your own comparison? And what does it mean to the LCO tribes people to be recognized this way? My speculation continues to why the word citizen was specifically used and according to a simple word search, citizens are basically townspeople. The overall meaning from what I gather, as being a citizen of a nation you must inhabit the place of the nation. So what I am getting at is we are all United States citizens, when we go to a different country we are no longer entitled to United States citizens rights while we are out of our country, embassy aside.
Do you see where I am getting at? You would think that having a meeting and discussing the changing of such wording would be such a trivial thing, I mean seriously why would it be even a topic if it didn’t have some deeper meaning? Now if you get into the word citizenship, it has a deeper meaning, look it up yourself, but the overall message of what it means to have citizenship of a nation greatly varies from nation to nation, theres no set definition. So basically its up to our council on how they define a citizen of the Lac Courte Orielles reservation. Again, challenge this thought and tell me another reason why they changed the wording.
To finish I would like to apologize again to the elders council, I was just looking out for all the elders. I am only being vocal because I care about all of my fellow tribal members and I can see us doing great things as a nation. My intentions are to not attack anybody and I hope that people can see that, especially my friends on LCO and my friends on council. I honestly feel people can rationally discuss their differences without hostilities, and I hope to change peoples view points through discussion to close this divide that is so blatantly through us as a nation.