Diversity Foundation, Inc. is Attempting to Make This World a Better Place by...
"Bridging the Gap Between People of all Cultures and Ethnicity" But we need more volunteers and financial support.
Working With The Native American Community
Diversity Foundation, Inc. is attempting to make a difference in this world by conducting fund raising and donation drives in SE Minnesota in an effort to provide beds, furniture, food and clothing for the Crow Creek and other Dakota Indian Reservations, whose ancestors were exiled from this area in 1863. Explore our website to see some of our past and on-going projects (since 2002) and to learn where Diversity, Crow Creek, and other underserved Dakota Reservations desperately need your help and support. There are many opportunites for Diversity Foundation, Inc. to provide even more help ... but we can't do it alone. Please consider joining us by making a one-time donation or by becoming one of our partners.
The On-Going Projects of Diversity Foundation, Inc.
The Dakota Homecoming - A Time for Healing and Reconciliation
The Dakota Homecoming Originated in 2004 as the brainchild of Diversity Foundation's Ed Lohnes and Lyle Rustad along with city of Winona (MN) officials, Mayor Jerry Miller, City Manager Eric Sorensen, and Councilman Tim Breza. Several years later this group gave rise to the Winona Dakota Unity Alliance as a third sponsor. These three organization together have begun to forge a bond and begin Reconciliation between Winona and the Dakota Nation that onced lived and called this place (SE Minnesota) their Homeland.
Diversity Foundation, with the help of corporations such as Frito Lay in Madison Wisconsin and others, has collected and delivered tons of food to various Native American and inner city communities.
Residents of Crow Creek were had their electricity cut off during some of the coldest days of the year as this article from Indian Country Today shows.
South Dakota-based Central Electric Cooperative has a policy in effect to provide electricity to its customers in the winter months regardless of their ability to pay. However, Crow Creek Reservation tribal members are getting their power turned off by the company in the midst of extreme blizzard conditions. In numerous instances, Crow Creek residents have medical conditions that require the use of electricity, and many other residents have small children and/or elderly in the home.
Dacotah Tipis Habitat for Humanity is a Ecuminical Christian Ministry founded in 1992 to ease the burden of a critical housing shortage on the Crow Creek Indian Reservation in Buffalo County, South Dakota.
Diversity Foundation supports this project because decent housing is a huge need on the Crow Creek Indian reservation.
Over the past several years, the Diversity Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Marine Corps, has distributed toys to thousands of Native American children through the Toys For Tots program. In both 2008 and 2009, over 10,000 youth on thirteen Dakota and Native Communities throughout the Great Plains and Manitoba, thanks to the cooperation of the Marine Corps Units in the Twin Cities and North and South Dakota, received toys along with Holiday "Cheer and Hope." These include communities in Minnesota and the Great Plains including Lower Sioux, Crow Creek, Santee, Lower Brule, Spirit Lake, Ft. Peck, Sioux Valley, Pipestone, Birdtail, among others.
Diversity Foundation, Inc. is in the process of helping the Crow Creek Reservation in central South Dakota put between twelve and fifteen people to work through the Crow Creek Toolbelt Project. People are ready to go to work but before they can begin they need to have their own toolbelt. Most people can not afford even the fourty dollars it costs to purchase the belts. If you are interested in helping thsese people return to work see below to donate to this project.
Diversity Foundation, over the past fifteen plus years, has been in the process of interview Native American elders for the purpose of preserving their history. Native American History has traditional been taught by passing it to one generation and the next through story telling. However, as the story tellers die off and no one is there to take their place, Native American history is in danger of being lost for good. All that will remain will be the history recorded by European-Americans.
Diversity Foundation's goal is to record the story tellers and perserve their history on video. So far Diversity Foundation has recorded hundreds of hours of video and has taken thousands of photographs. We need financial support in order to digitise our materials and to continue interviewing the elders before they all pass away.
