Indian Time - A Voice from the Eastern Door

A family who has had a series of hardships over the last year received a huge gift of toys, clothes and a $130 gift card. A club from Russell Sage College in Troy, New York donated all the gifts to the Nielson Family, who have had to move three times, and once into a shelter to escape domestic violence. Moving into the shelter resulted in a tremendous loss of belongings, and now in a new home, there was a need for many things. Theresa McCalmon made the trip from Troy to present the gifts to the family.

McCalmon said, “We help support and expose our community to Native American culture, heritage and history, and our main goal is to dispel superstition and myths, replacing those with truth and facts. We do that through service learning projects, community service, and things like this.”

The club, Native American Daughters in Education, put out a call to find an organization they could help. Beginning with a call to Washington DC, they through a series of phone calls were ultimately directed to the Boys and Girls Club here in Akwesasne. Once Jessica Cree-Jock received the phone call, she knew just who to direct the support to.

“When Theresa had called me, they had just found a home for themselves. Theresa had left it up to me to select a family, and I figured that they were the family in the most need. They had lost a lot out of their transitions and I wanted to see something positive come out of it.”

Among the gifts received were an exercise bike for mom, and a ton of toys and clothes. The toys were all purchased new for the kids, while many of the clothes came from donations from faculty and students at the college.

In addition to collecting clothes, the club also held a fundraiser and was able to put that money on a Visa gift card which can go towards needs not filled by the other donations.

Many of the household gifts came from a second hand shop in Delmar, NY and the owner Vincenza, an Abenaki, was only too happy to help.