Unemployment, poverty, and alcoholism run rampant on many of South Dakota’s Indian reservations. Despite a lack of opportunity and a nagging sense of hopelessness for many - there is a safe place on the Cheyenne River where young people can go to play, eat healthy meals, learn valuable skills, and find hope for their futures.
Eagle Butte is a rural town on the Cheyenne River in south central South Dakota. The town lies in Ziebach county, one of South Dakota - and the nation’s poorest.
Eagle Butte has a nearly 85-percent unemployment rate and is plagued by social issues like alcoholism and poverty - conditions that can make it tough for young people to find hope and succeed in life.
Julie Garreau says giving kids hope and helping them succeed was her mission when she started the Cheyenne River Youth Project more than twenty-five years ago.
Garreau says with the help of other concerned residents, grants, and donations she turned an old building into a full-fledged youth center designed to keep young people safe, to feed them healthy meals, and provide them with productive activities to keep them off the streets and out of trouble.
“You know, we’re as grassroots as an organization gets. We were really just founded at home, by tribal members, by doing our own thing, and doing it the way we need to do it to address our community issues. Those are important things to me and I think that that’s what makes it a success is because we’re doing it for our people, the way it needs to be done, addressing the issues that affect us and our kids,” says Garreau.
Garreau says the Youth Center has transformed from one small building into a facility that now includes an indoor basketball court, an exercise room, a coffee shop and a café, an art room, a dance studio, a library, a computer lab, a classroom, a playground, and a garden.
Tammy Eagle Hunter attended the Youth Center as a young girl. Now as an adult, Eagle Hunter works at the Youth Project.
“They come because we’re a safe space. They come because they don’t have to take care of their siblings, they come because they’re seven years old, and they just want to be seven years old and here they get to do that. They come because we feed them dinner and they come because they have somebody paying attention to them,“ says Eagle Hunter.
Eagle Hunter says the programming exposes young people to healthy role models, and safe, positive activities.
“That’s why we have the art room, we do paintings. We have the library, they have creative writing classes, we try to offer some gaming programs, how to write code and develop websites. We’ve offered CPR, and first aid, and leadership, and suicide prevention, and gang awareness, and drug and alcohol recognition. You just have to plant a seed or start a little spark inside of them and they realize maybe I could be a painter, maybe I could write a book, maybe I could do these things,” says Eagle Hunter.
Eagle Hunter says internships are available at the coffee shop, there is also a farmers market to sell fruit and vegetables from the garden, and, she says, there’s also an opportunity for the kids to just be kids and play basketball.
“All we do is open the door, put the music on, throw some basketballs out there, and they just come. They come because it’s something that is really needed here. It fills a void. So we’ve had anywhere from a hundred to two-hundred and fifty kids come there. And it has been statistically proven through our local law enforcement facility that juvenile crime rate does decrease on the days that we hold it,” says Eagle Hunter.
Eagle Hunter says the Midnight Basketball program has been a big success.
Joseph White Eyes says it’s one of his favorites. White Eyes also used to come to the Youth Center as a young boy. He now works there as a teen.
“I guess as a youth I used to come here a lot. I used to come because it was a home away from home. It made me feel safe and secure here knowing that I had positive people to come see every day to keep me going. That’s why I keep coming back. They taught me to be a positive person in a negative environment,” says White Eyes.
The staff at the Youth Project are often parental figures to dozens of children on the Cheyenne River Reservation – making sure they’re exercising and eating their vegetables, but Tammy Eagle Hunter says it’s more than that.
“You know I think that’s the biggest thing is that you have to feel worthy to be able to do those great amazing things and if we’re not creating a generation of kids who feel worthy they’re not going to go anywhere. So my biggest goal is creating kids who are confident and can take hold of the opportunities that we give them,” says Eagle Hunter.
Eagle Hunter and Garreau say the staff at the Cheyenne River Youth Project will continue investing in the futures of young people by providing them with innovative programming that keeps them safe, out of trouble, gives them hope, and equips them with the skills to go on to be confident, productive adults.