#runningstrong

Faith Spotted Eagle (Tunkan Inajin Win – Standing Stone) was born in Lake Andes, South Dakota in 1948 at a time when opportunities for Native women were practically nonexistent.

But Faith had faith that she could make a significant improvement in the lives of her fellow members of the Yankton Sioux Nation by attending American University in Washington DC, and earning an MA in Educational Psychology and Counseling from the University of South Dakota.

To really make a difference for her people in the local, state and federal levels, she was not satisfied simply being an activist fighting for Native rights from the outside, she strived to do so from inside government by running for a seat in the South Dakota House of Representatives in 2006. She placed third in the Democratic Party primary out of three candidates, winning the most votes of any candidate in the majority-Native American Buffalo County in the district.

In the 2016 presidential election, Faith received one electoral vote for president of the United States, becoming the first Native American to receive an electoral college vote for president. She and Hillary Clinton are the first two women to receive such a vote.

Today, Faith is running for the District 21 seat of the South Dakota House of Representatives.

She is also a strong protector of the environment working strongly to block development of the Keystone XL Pipeline and the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Her ties to Running Strong for American Indian Youth®, as a founding grandmother of our longtime partner the Brave Heart Society, are strong and deep.

The Brave Heart Society was formed with the mission of bringing back traditional knowledge by “calling home the spirit of the culture.” Brave Heart grandmothers believe that culture is medicine, and the success of their many projects show the true strength of their culture.

Among those projects is “Isnati Awica Dowanpi” a coming-of-age ceremony for teenage girls, and one of the society’s greatest accomplishments. The once-forbidden and nearly lost ceremony had been forced underground, if not completely extinguished, before the 1978 American Indian Freedom of Religion Act.

As one of the seven sacred rites of the Lakota, the purpose of the Isnati is to teach young women to respect themselves, their roles and their bodies through the instruction of elder women.

Other projects of the Brave Heart Society include its “Calling Back the Spirit” healing retreat which aims to heal the traumas of abuse and addiction; the “Good Heart” garden which provides the Yankton Reservation community a place to learn practical gardening skills; and the Waterlilly Storytelling Institute, an annual gathering which provides an audience of all ages to share in the rich cultural knowledge passed down through generations.

Faith told manrepeller.com in an interview in 2017 that she didn’t wake up one day and decide she was going to be an activist.*

“Actually, growing up we didn’t even have the word activist in our vocabulary,” she said. “That’s an English word. We just had a word that means to help people in our family systems.”

Each year, Running Strong provides thousands of backpacks to elementary and junior high students on Pine Ridge and Cheyenne River Indian reservations, and beyond.

This year will be no different.

There are students who attend the St. Francis Indian School (SFIS) on the Rosebud Sioux Tribe Reservation in South Dakota who lack access to essential items such as the backpacks and school supplies required for school.

Thanks to our supporters, Running Strong for American Indian Youth® was able to provide our 2017 Dreamstarter Caitlin Bordeaux, a SFIS computer teacher, with 200 backpacks filled with school supplies last year.

“The whole school community at St. Francis Indian School were so thankful to have these backpacks,” reported Caitlin, in particular because the school year had begun without a principal in place, so the supply budget was frozen and none of the teachers were able to buy school supplies for their students.

“A lot of our students (about 550 in grades K-12) come from low-income households with multiple siblings so families don’t have a lot of money to buy new supplies,” she told us.

Shelby Little Shield, a member of the SFIS student council, was among the volunteers who helped distribute the Running Strong “StudyStrong” backpacks last year.

“I thought it was so cool that all the students were welcomed back to school with a new backpack and school supplies,” she told us. “It’s a nice way to start the school year.”

As for Caitlin, “Thanks to Running Strong, our students were able to start their school year off strong and prepared.

“Pilamaya ye (thank you) Running Strong for giving these deserving students these wonderful backpacks!”