Sarah and Norzin's Giveaway

by John Aldrich

As a dedicated participant with 20 years of service to the Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program, Sarah Sifers has distinguished herself as one of our most senior and distinguished volunteers. She has been a devoted sponsor of her Elder, Jane Biakeddy, as well as a faithful participant in yearly food runs. Sarah's calm judgement and experience make her a highly valued member of every food run team in which she participates.

Sarah's Elder, Jane, is home-bound due to a stroke, and for years Sarah has made a special trip to Big Mountain to visit her in her home.

In addition to her dedication to ANE, Sarah has her own non-profit, Indigenous Lenses, which is devoted to helping Tibetan refugees in Nepal. Sarah travels annually in the fall to the Pokhara region of Nepal to help these people with whom she has become very close.

An earthquake in Nepal in the spring of 2015 led to a touching intersection of these two organizations to which Sarah is dedicated. Here is the story in Sarah's words:

In the spring of 2015, Nepal suffered a devastating earthquake.  So Grace Smith Yellowhammer, during the Sanders, Big Mountain and Teesto food run, asked me to take a bracelet that a Tibetan Rinpoche had given her to Nepal and to give it to an elder on that side of the world in the hopes that the prayers in the bracelet would bring peace and healing to a nation in recovery.  When I arrived in Nepal last fall, I made my way to the Tibetan refugee camp and gifted the bracelet to Norzin, an elder who has lived in exile from Tibet since 1959.  She is a weaver.  She sits on her front porch and weaves traditional two-sided incense bags...which they fill with ground juniper.  The juniper is then placed on burning embers as an offering to their deities.  In a wonderful synchronicity, and as a giveaway to honor my twentieth year of food runs, Norzin wove enough incense bags to gift each volunteer who participated in this year's Sanders, Big Mountain and Teesto food runs with one of those incense bags.

Those of us who were privileged to attend this spring's food run to Sanders, Big Mountain, and Teesto were blessed to receive one of these sashes.

As a gesture of solidarity with Norzin and her people, all of us wore our sashes at the time of the group picture which began our food run at Sanders.

Here is a closer view of one of the sashes as worn by Ella White Katoney, our coordinator at Sanders.

We express our deep appreciation to Sarah and Norzin for this gift and for the feeling that the world has thus become a smaller place in which to share a sense of community with others around the globe.

Fabric For The Elders - 2014

by John Aldrich

At the warehouse, the first few months of the year are devoted to preparing the giveaways that Elders will receive on the food runs as well as the gift boxes that sponsors can order. One of the biggest jobs for our warehouse volunteers is the preparation of the fabric that will be used for both giveaways and gift boxes. Two years ago we began to order and cut the fabric ourselves which has saved us considerable money but is labor intensive. This blog, written in 2012, describes the process that we devised to accomplish the task.

We are now in the midst of working on the fabric for the 2014 food runs, and the warehouse once again looks like the back room at Hancock's (except at Hancock's you probably wouldn't find guys doing this work).

Please refer back to the link above to see in greater detail how the cutting process works at our "shop".

We make an effort at the warehouse to make each giveaway something special for the Elder who will receive it. In the case of the fabric, this involves rolling it and tying it up with a ribbon. Robin Field-Williams is one of the volunteers working on this final touch.

This is the second week of our textile operation, so quite a bit of inventory has already been accumulated. It takes 12 to 15 volunteers to keep this assembly line running and 6 volunteer days or 3 weeks to finish the fabric project.

Here is some of the green panne fabric that will either end up as giveaways at the food runs or be put into Grandma boxes that can be ordered by sponsors.

Waiting for their turn at the cutting tables are these bolts of calico.

Here are some interesting facts and figures supplied by C.J. Robb who manages our warehouse operations:

We order a total of 6300 yards of fabric from a wholesaler. This costs around $20,000. Although this is a large sum, it represents a saving of about $9000 over what we paid prior to 2012 to order the fabric locally and have it cut for us.

The fabric order includes 2700 yards of heavy panne which is cut into 3 yard pieces, and 3600 yards of lighter calico which is cut into 4 yard pieces. These bundles will be split between giveaways and Grandma boxes. Grandma boxes contain, among other things, a bundle of panne and a bundle of calico, enough for an Elder to make a whole outfit - skirt and top. We will assemble 400 of these boxes which will be split between the spring and fall food runs.

500 bundles of panne and calico will be split between the spring and fall food runs and used as giveaways. These are among the most popular of the gifts that Elders receive and among the most mentioned when Linda receives thank-you letters.

It's clear that a lot of effort takes place behind the scenes to make these beautiful gifts for the Elders possible. We owe a huge amount of thanks to our warehouse volunteers, the unsung heroes of ANE.

What happens when all this material gets to the reservation?

Here is Mary Begay explaining to the Grandmas at Navajo Mountain that each will receive a Grandma box as a gift provided by a grant from American Express and that each box will contain a bundle of panne and one of calico.

Rena Greyeyes holds the contents of her Grandma box including the fabric.

Here Linda helps an Elder at Leupp pick out a color.

And at Navajo Mountain, an Elder considers the choices among the bundles of calico.

The final outcome of all this effort from warehouse-to-foodrun-to-hogan is a completed outfit that might be worn at the next food run. Bessie Paul of Dilkon proudly wears hers.

Fabric For The Elders

by John Aldrich

Traditional Navajos have a distinctive style of dress. For the women it includes tops made of panne velour fabric and long, full skirts made either of velour or cotton fabric. Part of the giveaway at each food run is fabric that the Elders can use to make these items.

Here is Rose Marie Clark at the Oljato food run wearing a skirt and top make from fabric provided by ANE. Although an Elder might be lucky enough to have a friend or family member with a sewing machine, most make their clothes themselves by hand.

Up until this year we obtained the material from Hancock Fabrics where employees worked together with ANE volunteers to cut the material. This year we ordered the material from a supplier, giving us a greater selection of colors at a lower price, and the bulk roles were delivered to the warehouse.

We had enough material to produce 977 three-yard pieces of panne velour and 500 four-yard pieces of cotton fabric. The challenge was figuring out an efficient way to cut all this into the required sizes. With the genius of Art Sleeper's engineering mind, a clever system was devised that allowed our volunteers to accomplish this task which took place over a period of a month.

This photo shows how spindles of metal pipe were inserted into the rolls and then suspended from our warehouse scaffolding.

The fabric is pulled out from the roll:

And then aligned to the pre-measured length:

It is then cut:

And folded:

While at the other end a different fabric pattern is being folded:

The final result of all this effort is enough fabric for the Elders to last through both the spring and fall food runs.

An Outpouring of Giving

by John Aldrich

The Giveaway Circle is a central principal of the Adopt-A-Native-Elder Program. This Native American tradition is explained in greater detail in this blog about the Program Vision. But briefly, we give of ourselves and our possessions, and we give our best, while we hold no expectation of anything in return. This thought underlies everything we do for the Elders in our program. However, despite the fact that these people have very little themselves, they are often moved to give in return.

During the program at each food run there is a point where Linda asks if anyone has anything they wish to donate to the Program. Some of the Elders or their families always come forward at this point and present things they have made, typically rugs and jewelry such as necklaces. Sometimes the gifts are specifically designated for people such as Linda or the Elder's sponsor, while most are given for the use of the Program. Many of these gifts, particularly the rugs, are used by ANE to honor individuals who have made special contributions to further the work of the  Program.

This giving is a part of every food run, but at the recent Navajo Mountain food run there seemed to be an unusually great and spontaneous outpouring of gifts.

The first food run to Navajo Mountain took place in August of 2008 so this was only the sixth run to this location. (By comparison, food runs have been held at Big Mountain for 25 years.) Despite this short history, the people of this remote area have quickly embraced ANE and made the volunteers feel welcome.

When the time came for Elder donations, many stepped forward, and then they just seemed to keep coming. Many had gifts to be passed along to their sponsor, some had gifts for Linda, several had gifts for their sponsors who were present, and some had gifts for the volunteers who were present, and one had gifts for volunteers who helped make the food run possible but couldn't be present.

The following photos show a representative, although incomplete, picture of what happened.

The first to step forward was Elise Greymountain who presented this beautiful ceremonial basket.

Among the Elders at Navajo Mountain there are a number of basket weavers. This particular skill is prevalent along the northern reaches of the reservation where the Navajo people intermixed with Piutes who have a long history of basket making.

Two volunteers were sponsors of Elders at Navajo Mountain, and each received a special gift. Here is Gina Zimmerer with her Elder, Emma Seaton, who presented Gina with a beautiful necklace.

While Nancy Greenwood received this beautiful rug from her Elder, Nancy Greymountain.

Sponsors who weren't present at the food run were not forgotten. Several Elders asked that their gifts be passed along to their sponsors. Cherie Foster of Perth, Australia, adopted Jean Dejolie at the food run last August, and Jean brought this rug to be sent to Cherie.

In her right hand can be seen two necklaces, one of which she presented to me. This was both touching and surprising since, as the photographer, I figure I'm not always the most popular person in the room.

Betty Longsalt, a fine weaver, presented this rug to the Program.

The two new volunteers on this run, Marilyn Cowan and Suzanne Christiansen, were given necklaces by Elise Greymountain and Sylvia Clark.

While Faye Sombero sorts through necklaces that she presented to the other volunteers.

All of the volunteers were deeply moved by this outpouring of giving. For people who have so little to be so generous seems an embodiment of the Giveaway Circle.