The following story was written and reported by Christina Rose, Native Sun
News Correspondent. All content © Native Sun News.
Back row: Dylan Carby, Billy Good Voice Elk, and Lawton Thompson. Seated are Lynette Noline and Cindy Fleming. All participate in the development of the new agency in Rapid City, A New Day.
For the employees; it’s always a New Day
By Christina Rose
Native Sun News Correspondent
RAPID CITY — For Recovery Counselor Cindy Fleming, a new life began on March 29, 2008 when she had a car accident while driving under the influence of alcohol. Her car was dragged 60 feet down the highway, her arm had been torn off, and she was dead when the paramedics found her. “I was in a coma and they never thought I would wake up,” Fleming remembered.
Fleming was able to be revived and her arm was successfully reattached, although she had to relearn the control of certain motor skills. Fleming quit drinking and has been substance abuse free since then, for the last five years. Like many people who suffer serious accidents, her experience changed her life in many ways, and it brought her back to spirituality.
“I made the decision to turn my life around. I went to college and became a counselor. And here I am,” she said with a big smile. “Here” is the “New Day Recovery Services.” Fleming started the company last December when she became fed up with her last job.
“I felt they were taking advantage of the grants and pushing the people out the door. Here, I am using all the money to help the people.” Fleming now receives funding from the Oglala Sioux Tribe. Counting herself lucky, Fleming said, “I have a husband who supported my decision. He said, ‘Leave your job, honey. If that’s what you are going to do, then do it.”
A New Day Recovery Services, at 2040 West Main Street, suite 302, in Rapid City, opened just six months ago, and has been taking off since then. New programs are being added as the need arises and the services they provide certainly do seem unique.
“We sit around and talk in private consultation and in our talking circle,” Fleming said. “We pray, we smudge and everybody has a chance to talk. I am the student not the teacher. I join in the group and everybody including me shares their experiences,” she said.
Besides counseling, the group is in the process of rolling out a youth program and if kids can’t get there, they will be picked up and brought to the center. “We help people get jobs and their GEDs, and we can locate housing and whatever we can do to support recovery from any myriad of circumstances,” Fleming added, “If you are sober, but your life is in shambles, then you are still suffering.”
“If someone needs an assessment, I go get it,” Fleming continued, listing program after program. “All of the profits from the spiritual services go back to the community to support the community; all profits, all the money from the pow wow, is going into the spiritual program, which will grow and become a separate entity of A New Day.”
Billie Good Voice Elk is leading the spiritual component of the organization, which will soon begin the process of becoming a 501 C3. Good Voice Elk, like many spiritual people, started his early years by taking a few wrong turns before he got back on track. Good Voice Elk’s father had been a spiritual leader in his community, and Billie said, “Coming home from federal prison, I said, that’s not my life. I needed to pick up where my dad left off, and that kept me doing the work.”
Good Voice Elk's parents are from Oglala and Kyle. He said they are now holding sweats every Saturday in Rapid City. “We have about 30-40 people on probation or on parole, who come to be part of it. I am still on paper, too, but I am working to be a better person. I looked at my walk and thought, if I am going to preach it, I have to walk it. And if I am going to walk it, I better preach it.”
The center seems to have taken on a life all its own and those who find their way seem to stay. When Lynette Noline, Sicangu Lakota, was doing a job search on the reservation, she kept hitting a blank wall. “There were no jobs on the reservation, so I came to Rapid City. One day I saw an ad about support groups, and then I ran into Cindy. She asked me to volunteer, and when she saw what I was capable of doing, the filing and other office support work, she asked me to take some classes in counseling.”
Noline already had a Bachelor’s Degree in both Business Management and Nursing from Sinte Gleska. She just has to take the test for nursing and will be taking counseling classes in the fall. Currently, Noline is working with the women’s support groups at Fleming’s Recovery Center. “When people come in we make them feel welcome. Cindy is a great lady and when people meet her, they want to work with her,” Noline said.
Noline also assists with family services and life skills training, which teaches food preparation and household budgeting. There is also computer tutoring, employment services, including resume assistance and job coaching. They provide clean and sober social events and DUI classes on Fridays. “We get even get people to get involved with YMCA. We take applications for the Y for swimming, work-outs, after-school programs, tutoring, Alcohol Anonymous and Narcotic Anonymous, transport and mobile outreach services, and inipi. The group also travels to different reservations to meet with individuals who need care management, cultural traditional mentoring and healing. It might be difficult to predict what else the group will do.
According to Good Voice Elk, the path of recovery is a long hard road. But since he has been involved in A New Day, he said, “Now it’s a downhill coast. You have to move forward. Why use the past against each other, why put people in the position of 'You did this or that'. With A New Day, we leave the past behind us. The community needs spirituality. We need to find who we are, and this is how. We are Lakota.”
Good Voice Elk continued, “I like what I do, helping people with the sweat lodge, and any ceremony that involves prayer. That is what we do. They have something here. There is a program here that will help them. People in treatment, the sweat lodge, we got our Sundance, our hanbleca; and we cannot neglect those, because that is who we are.”
Other services Good Voice Elk provides include blessings, healing, spirit-mind-body work, and he was even asked to do a name giving ceremony.
A pow wow to honor all of those seeking recovery will be held on July 26 at the Mother Butler Center. Good Voice Elk said, “We want people to know they are part of something, and we are trying to build an alliance between Natives and non-natives. We want to break the stereotypes; there are a lot of educated people and the spiritual people here, they give the time of day for something that is going to help the community. Whether or not they were in jail, doesn’t matter. If there is a person who needs to change, I have to look at myself,” Good Voice Elk said.
(Contact Christina Rose at christinarose.sd@gmail.com)
Copyright permission by Native Sun News
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