Editorial: Spend spring break on a reservation

Friday, June 29, 2007  

"Ten students from Yale University spent about 10 days in Eagle Butte last month as part of the Cheyenne River Youth Project’s Alternative Spring Break program.

Lots of U.S. college students do service projects in lieu of the typical spring break experience, and the Yale group was no different. They volunteered in a community garden, cleaned a gymnasium floor, organized a warehouse, held a fundraiser, fed elders and staffed a youth center on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation.

While their hard work was appreciated by Julie Garreau, the executive director of the Cheyenne River Youth Project, she said the real value of the Yale students’ visit was in the exposure to college culture that they brought to reservation youth.

“They show our children the educational options and opportunities that are available to them,” Garreau said. “Our teens need to be able to make informed decisions about their higher education and the alternative spring break groups can offer their perspectives, provide information about their universities and expose our youth to the great diversity in the world.”

We think every South Dakota college and university would be wise to do the same thing on each of the state’s American Indian reservations"

Get the Story:
Editorial: Expand alternative spring break plans on reservations (The Rapid City Journal 6/29)

$rl Cheyenne River Youth Project - http://lakotayouth.org