Below is the text from the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal Community Fundraising Letter. Please consider downloading it and sharing it with anyone you think may be able to help. Thank you!
Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal Community Fundraising Letter
January 1, 2024
Dear Friends of the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal Community, Pidamaya-ye (thank you) to all who joined us in September for our 26th annual Wacipi (powwow), in Mendota, MN. On Sept 8-9-10 2023.
We welcome you again next September.
For anyone unfamiliar with our community, we are Mdewakanton Dakota, The Spirit Lake People. Our
birthplace is here in Mendota (Mdote) where two waters come together.
For nearly 30 years, we have been working tirelessly to obtain federal recognition with the hopes that our members can continue to reclaim our cultural traditions, care for our sacred sites, and maintain our spiritual practices. Despite colonization efforts to systematically eradicate our people and despite continued barriers today, our members remain active and committed to being Dakota. We hold cultural classes on our traditional arts and our language, gather monthly for our Inipi (sweat lodge ceremony) and other ceremonies, and research our local history.
It is with hope and humility that we are writing to you today. Our Creator has blessed us with family, friends, and spiritual leaders to help overcome the past with love, compassion, and solidarity.
For thirty years we have been renting spaces for our community so that we can gather and steward this land that is our very life.
Today, we give special thanks to the Sisters of Charity of the Blessed Virgin Mary from Dubuque, Iowa, who have given generously to start a land acquisition fund of $250,000. We are humbled by the opportunity it will provide us to finally obtain land and build our own community center.
If you live near the Twin Cities, your church, synagogue, college, home, or business was built on Dakota land. Now is the time for healing. Now is the time for dreaming with us. We dream of land large enough to host our Wacipis and Inipis. We dream of a traditionally cultivated garden to share our food and medicine knowledge with our children. We dream of a community center designed like our tipis to showcase our Dakota architecture. We dream of space for community gatherings, classrooms for learning, and an interpretive center to share our history. We dream of a Dakota homeland.
We invite you to join this vital work. Please consider a tax-deductible donation to the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal Community (MMDTC).
We prefer donations via check, as they do not require us to pay a fee and can be mailed to:
MMDTC, 1200 Centre Pointe Curve, in Mendota Heights, MN 55120.
Donations are also accepted via ACH, PayPal & Venmo: Sharon Lennartson (Tribal Chair) on our website:
MendotaDakota.com
We offer honorary titles of Wolf, Bear, Hawk & Eagle for our most generous supporters. More info on our donation page.
You can learn more about our past, our current events, and our mission to preserve, protect, and promote the Dakota culture for future generations at MendotaDakota.com or through an in-person presentation to your faith or business community.
Mitakuye Owas’iŋ (We are all relatives)
- Wakiya Waste Win (Good Thunder Woman) Sharon Lennartson, Tribal Chair
- Vice Chairperson: Steven Renville.
- Treasurer: Joseph Lennartson
- Secretary: Danielle Ross
- Historian: Greg Strandmark
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