Mendota has been a 501C3 since 1997. “Preserving, Protecting and Promoting the Dakota Culture for Future Generations.”
We are a proud Dakota Community, and you can help us!
What: The Mendota Community 26th Anniversary and Fundraiser
When: June 4th, 2022, 12 p.m. – 4 p.m. (CST)
Where: Inside Peter’s Church Mendota, MN (1405 Sibley Memorial Hwy 5512)
Details: Potluck with Mendota to provide food as well. Donations of water and pop would be nice. Volunteers needed to help with set-up and clean up. Please email Sharon at mendotadakota@gmail.com asap if you can help.
Please come join us on this very special day!!
Please send your donations to MMDTC 1351 Sibley Memorial Hwy Mendota, MN 55150. PLEASE NO CASH.
We are accepting any donations, even if they are anonymous donations, small or corporation donations, every donation helps. Thank you in advance for your generosity. Your donations will be greatly appreciated!
It will be so nice to have a place of our own. No more getting permission to go to church (Inipi) and have meetings, get togethers. We can meet when we want day or night, and weekends.
How would you like to ask for permission to go to your church?
How would you like it if they dug up your relatives for a building? Think about your relatives being dug up, like your children, mom, dad, grandmother and grandmother, or any of your family at their resting place forever.
Why does this keep happening to native americans, my people, your people? With no respect for their resting place. Where do your loved ones go after being dug up?
We get no help from the more profitable tribes (ever) in almost 30 years. Our own native brothers and sisters. While we have received a couple of grants from the government, we receive no other help from them. We do get donations from 4 other federal tribes for our Pow Wow. Pidamaya ye to those tribes.
Why do we have to prove who we are constantly, as the Mendota Mdewakanton Dakota Tribal community?
Land and Federal Recognition should have been given back to us when other Dakota tribes were recognized. We hope to send in our narrative soon to the Office of Federal Acknowledgement. Greg, and others are working hard to get the narrative done.
With people telling us when we can go to our native church, our INIPI. We have nowhere to have our meetings. Unless we get permission from the DuPuis House, our ancestral home of Angelique DuPuis Renville & Hipolite. Historial St Peter’s Church or the Mendota VFW, the DuPuis House all in Mendota MN. Mendota does appreciate all these places helping us all these many years.
The DuPuis House is where our community center should be. The center of mother earth to the Dakota people since time began. Long before history was written. The Mendota Community is the keepers of the Eastern gate.
We need our own center for our native american members and honorary members. We will have language, culture, history crafting classes, and so much more! We once had the longest language classes for 15 years until we ran out of funding.
Our community center will be a place where everyone can come by and visit us, have coffee, and maybe share a lunch with us. Just come and visit. Tribal council will listen to what you have to say. Elders and others can come and tell their stories. I don’t get paid so I can sit and talk all day if I want. No one on the council gets paid; it’s all volunteer work; however, Joe does get paid a very small amount as treasurer and grant writer.
Mendota needs about $500,000 to buy a building or house for our center in an industrial or commercial area. That’s what houses go for in the Mendota, Mendota Heights, and Eagan area. We want to stay close to our sacred land. Everything is so expensive these days, especially for a small tribe like ours.
We do not affiliate to any other federal tribes in MN. How very sad we cannot get help from our brothers and sisters! Mendota had no one to speak on their behalf in 1034. Now we will fight until we get recognized, that is rightly our rights.
We hope to send in our narrative soon.
Thank you for coming to our website. www.mendotadakota.com
Brad works very hard to keep our site up for around 10 years. Thank You Brad!!
Native Lives Matter!
Thank you Pidamaya ye Sharon Lennartson Tribal Chairwomen. 651-452-4141.
Spirit name is Wakiya Waste Win ( Good Thunder Woman ) What’s your spirit name if you have one? 26th Anniversary and Fundraiser 2022
You can find all the tribal council under contacts on this website.
Thank you in English, pidamaya ye woman say, pidamaya men say, means ‘thank you’ in Dakota.
Sharon Lennartson Tribal Chairwoman.
Jason Delmont Vice Chairman
Joe Lennartson Treasurer
Jason Delmont Secretary
Greg Standmark Historian