Whether you travel in your own town, state, country or around the world, you are bound to come across special places that are sacred to people. I have been lucky enough to do a lot of traveling in my life and I am particularly touched by places like Crazy Horse Memorial in South Dakota or the Indian Mounds Park in Saint Paul, MN. You can feel the spirit and history of the people when you visit a spots like Redwood National Park, Pipestone Monument, or Pearl Harbor. These important places are too numerous to mention, but I will say that the loss of any one of them would be a loss to humanity. My funder today has a mission to support issues of residency and status of American Indian lands and that includes preservation of the places they hold as hallowed.

This week’s pick: The Indian Land Tenure Foundation offers a unique grant opportunity to preserve, educate about, and protect places that are sacred to Native American people. Their RFP for the Protection of Sacred Sites “seeks projects that convey the importance of ties between Indian culture and land to as many people as possible.” Important to this funder is giving native tribes the resources to take action to strengthen Indian culture and land management.

Past grants amounts have ranged between $20,000 and $70,000. The deadline is October 16, 2008 for tribes to submit proposals on projects that will identify, secure and protect sacred land. The application form and requirements can be found by clicking here.

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On August 27th our conference room was buzzing with good food, good conversation and much-missed colleagues and friends. Past staff members and interns of the Improve Group gathered to catch up and reminisce. Alumni in attendance were: Kari Schuch, Brooke Ahlquist, Nathan Paine, Nathan Salzl and Collin Cunningham along with Steve Mayne who was on his last day of his internship. Staff members Leah Goldstein Moses, Marian Kimball-Eichinger, Rebecca Stewart, Susan Murphy, Samantha Hagel and Danielle Assy were also part of the luncheon.

It was a pleasure to hear about the alums’ current work at great organizations like the Minnesota Department of Health, Greater Twin Cities United Way and the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. Another one of our recent co-workers took the Barr Exam this summer. There was no surprise to any of us that the prospects were so bright for our former co-workers.

The afternoon ended with a lot of laughs and containers of Thai Food to take home. For those interns and alumni that couldn’t make it to the lunch, we hope you will stop by and see us soon.

Above – Standing left to right: Collin Cunningham, Leah Goldstein Moses, Kari Schuch,
Brooke Ahlquist and Nathan Paine. Kneeling left to right: Steve Mayne and
Nathan Salzl

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