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Shakopee Mdewakanton Award $325,000 to Support Ponca Clean Food Initiative

Prior Lake, Minn. – The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community in Minnesota announced a $325,000 grant to the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma for its restorative and clean food agriculture program. The grant will fund 90 fruit trees, equipment, staff, an office, and much more.

Headquartered in White Eagle, Oklahoma, the Ponca Tribe started an Agriculture Program in 2012 to help provide its members with healthier food. With limited access to fresh, healthy, and affordable food, reservation residents – especially elders, children, and diabetic and heart patients from the local health clinic – need more clean produce.

Clean foods are grown without the use of pesticides, artificial preservatives, and other chemicals and are minimally processed and transported so that they retain the highest nutritional value possible. Clean foods produced through the Ponca Tribe's Agriculture Program will go toward the tribe's Head Start and senior nutritional programs, and will be served to clinic patients and at the tribe's pow wows this summer.

The program has grown to include 350 acres, with 40 acres in vegetables, 50 acres in wheat, and 50 acres in corn – much of which is handmade the old-fashioned way into hominy and dried for use in traditional soups. The remaining 210 acres consist of pasture land to sustain livestock, which will provide meat in future years. The tribe has 10 cows and 13 pigs that are being bred, along with 1,000 chickens that produce 40 dozen eggs each day. The tribe is working to produce beef with a low fat content, similar to what was eaten in a traditional Native American diet.

"The long-term goals of this project are to provide a healthy food source for our tribal members and to create the financial means to sustain the project in the future. Your assistance will allow us to better address the needs of our people both now and in the future," wrote Ponca Chairman Earl Howe III in the tribe's request to the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.

Background

In addition to the current grant, the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community provided the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma with an $808,473 grant in 2006 for economic development and debt reduction and $100,000 in 2005 for the tribe's successful lawsuit against Continental Carbon, a chemical manufacturer that polluted tribal lands with a carcinogen.

In 1877 the federal government forced the Ponca Tribe to move from their homes along the Missouri River in Niobrara, Nebraska, to Oklahoma. One-third of the tribe's members perished on the trip, and many of those remaining were sick or disabled. Not until 1881 was a portion of their land returned to them, and some were allowed to return home. Those who remained in Oklahoma became the federally recognized Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma; those who returned to Nebraska are the Ponca Tribe of Nebraska. The 17,000-acre reservation in Oklahoma is currently home to more than a third of the 3,200 tribal members.

About the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community is a federally recognized, sovereign Indian tribe located southwest of Minneapolis/St. Paul. With a focus on being a good neighbor, good steward of the earth, and good employer, the SMSC is committed to community partnerships, charitable donations, a healthy environment, and a strong economy. The SMSC and the SMSC Gaming Enterprise (Mystic Lake Casino Hotel and Little Six Casino) are the largest employer in Scott County. Out of a Dakota tradition to help others, the SMSC has also donated nearly $272 million since 1992, including more than $152 million to other tribes, tribal organizations, and American Indian causes.