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April 28, 2024
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American Indian College Fund seeks donations for flooded tribal colleges in Montana, North Dakota

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear
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jodi@imfreedomalliance.org https://twitter.com/JodiRave
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Rebecca Clarren’s next stop on her book tour for “The Cost of Free Land” is Bismarck on April 29, where she’ll be having a reading and open discussion about the dispossession of Indigenous land. Photo by Shelby Brakken, photo courtesy of Rebecca Clarren

A lot of great folks are out there working for the tribal colleges, including my husband, Frankie C. Lee, a civil engineer who instructs students at Fort Berthold Community College. A crew from FBCC is over at Northern Cheyenne to check out a straw bale house, a model for the FBCC engineering team. The point being that all the tribal college folks represent a big family. Now, some of the family members need help because flooding is taking a toll. It will only get worse before anything gets better. Check out the following June 1 news update from the American Indian College Fund. A donation link is below.

Flooding has created disaster conditions at two tribal colleges: Little Big Horn College in Eastern Montana and United Tribes Technical College in Bismarck, North Dakota. While massive flooding threatens the surrounding communities, these tribal colleges are serving as the command centers for the disaster, providing shelter, food, and clothing to those in need. Resources are desperately needed to sustain their relief efforts.

Two other tribal colleges, Cankdeska Cikana Community College in Fort Totten, North Dakota; and Fort Belknap in Harlem, Montana have been threatened by the rising waters, which have cut off roads and tainted the drinking water supply.

Unfortunately the worst is yet to come. A record snow pack and runoff water raising the Missouri River to record levels is straining dams, which are already at their breaking points. In the coming weeks, officials will release millions of gallons of water down the already full waterways to try to save the dams. In addition to Montana and North Dakota tribal colleges, which are facing the worst flooding situation in history, as the waters continue to rise, flooding also threatens thousands more lives and tribal colleges in South Dakota and Nebraska.

Please donate to the American Indian College Fund’s flood emergency fund today. Your donation will help provide affected students with food, clothing, housing, transportation, and supplies; and will give funds to tribal colleges in the affected regions to defray the costs incurred for their emergency relief efforts. Click here to donate now or call 800-776-3863!

Jodi Rave

Posted in CommunityTagged
Jodi Rave Spotted Bear
jodi@imfreedomalliance.org https://twitter.com/JodiRave

Jodi Rave Spotted Bear is the founder and director of the Indigenous Media Freedom Alliance, a 501-C-3 nonprofit organization with offices in Bismarck, N.D. and the Fort Berthold Reservation. Jodi spent 15 years reporting for the mainstream press. She's been awarded prestigious Nieman and John S. Knight journalism fellowships at Harvard and Stanford, respectively. She also an MIT Knight Science Journalism Project fellow. Her writing is featured in "The Authentic Voice: The Best Reporting on Race and Ethnicity," published by Columbia University Press. Jodi currently serves as a Society of Professional Journalists at-large board member, an SPJ Foundation board member, and she chairs the SPJ Freedom of Information Committee. Jodi has won top journalism awards from mainstream and Native press organizations. She earned her journalism degree from the University of Colorado at Boulder.

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