National Service Agency Supports Service in Native American Communities (Chart)

Washington D.C. -- The Corporation for National and Community Service announced more than $3 million in grants to support Native American communities in using national service as a solution to tackle social and economic challenges. The 18 tribal grants will support a range of projects including cultural and language preservation, economic development, health and wellness, youth leadership, education attainment, and traditional lands preservation. Below is a listing of the grants, which were made through the Corporation’s AmeriCorps and Learn and Serve America programs.

2010 AmeriCorps Indian Tribes Grants

On June 7, 2010, the Corporation for National and Community Service announced the results of its 2010 AmeriCorps grant competition, the first since the passage of the Edward M. Kennedy Serve America Act.  Among the awards were nine grants to Indian Tribes totaling $2,169,958 to support 188 AmeriCorps members who will address key challenges facing Native American communities, including building and renovating homes, tutoring youth, disaster response, substance abuse prevention, and economic development. 

Upon completing their full-time term of service, AmeriCorps members earn a Segal AmeriCorps Education Award of $5,350 that can be used to pay for college or pay back student loans.

Listed below are the 2010 AmeriCorps grants to Indian Tribes, including organization, funding amount, member positions, location, and program description.  For more information about the 2010 AmeriCorps grants, click here.

Rough Rock Community School Board, Inc

• Total Award Amount: $260,000
• Number of AmeriCorps Members: 26
• Location: Chinle, AZ
• Program: Rough Rock AmeriCorps Program
• Program Summary: AmeriCorps members tutor and mentor students in grades K-6 at the Rough Rock Community School.  Members collaborate with school officials to address school safety issues by developing substance abuse and gang intervention activities. Members come from the local Tribal population, and receive training during their service year to develop technical, professional and leadership skills.

Hoopa Valley Tribe and Hoopa Forestry Division

• Total Award Amount: $155,968
• Number of AmeriCorps Members: 12
• Location: Hoopa, CA
• Program: Hoopa AmeriCorps on Native Lands Program
• Program Summary: Hoopa AmeriCorps on Native Lands is a Tribal AmeriCorps program that serves the Elders on the Hoopa Valley reservation.  Members conduct needs assessment surveys with elders and engage in the activities necessary to meet the individual needs of the elders, such as providing the elders with wood, minor home repairs or home beautification, and providing companionship.

Hoopa Valley Tribe and Hoopa Forestry Division

• Total Award Amount: $585,000
• Number of AmeriCorps Members: 30
• Location: Hoopa, CA
• Program: Hoopa Tribal Civilian Community Corps
• Program Summary: AmeriCorps members will provide direct services in disaster response/recovery, environment, education, and unmet human needs focused on clean energy/environment and opportunity and volunteer recruitment for programs that target native populations in various states.

Choctaw Housing Authority

• Total Award Amount: $259,996
• Number of AmeriCorps members: 20
• Location: Choctaw, MS
• Program: Build Choctaw
• Program Summary: AmeriCorps members provide new home construction and renovation of existing houses for low to middle income residents on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw reservation.

Omaha Tribe

• Total Award Amount: $155,540
• Number of AmeriCorps Members: 12
• Location: Macy, NE
• Program: Bright Futures AmeriCorps Team
• Program Summary: The Omaha Tribe and the Bright Futures AmeriCorps program focuses on improving student engagement and academic achievement in grades K-6 in two reservation schools.  Members engage youth during school hours and summer by providing classroom academic assistance, aiding in supervising playground activities, organizing community service projects, and coordinating cultural awareness activities with the assistance of tribal elders.

Santee Sioux Nation

• Total Award Amount: $129,995
• Number of AmeriCorps Members: 11
• Location: Niobrara, NE
• Program: Santee AmeriCorps Program
• Program Summary: The Santee AmeriCorps Program places members in a variety of tribal departments, based on member interest and department needs, to enhance the capacity of the tribal agency to serve the community and to provide the member with valuable service experience in a field of interest for possible future employment opportunities.

Pueblo of Isleta

• Total Award Amount: $243,960
• Number of AmeriCorps Members: 50
• Location: Isleta, NM
• Program: Service Project
• Program Summary: AmeriCorps members will support youth development programming in out of school time programs that target Native youth in the tribal communities of Bernalillo and Sandoval counties in New Mexico.

Ysleta del Sur Pueblo

• Total Award Amount: $125,999
• Number of AmeriCorps Members: 14
• Location: El Paso, TX
• Program: Target Tigua
• Program Summary: AmeriCorps members provide support to five departments within the Ysleta del Sur Pueblo nation focused on economic opportunity, community development and volunteer recruitment targeting YDSP residents

Sokaogon Chippewa Community

• Total Award Amount: $253,500
• Number of AmeriCorps Members: 13
• Location: Crandon, WI
• Program: TAP AmeriCorps Project
• Program Summary: AmeriCorps members will support tribal coalitions and out of school time programs to address substance abuse prevention needs of youth in Wisconsin tribal communities.

Learn and Serve America Tribal Grants

On May 20, 2010, the Corporation for National and Community Service announced five Learn and Serve America grants totaling $650,070 to Indian Tribes to support service-learning projects in Native American communities. Service learning is a teaching method that combines academic instruction with community service that strengthens students learning and civic skills while meeting community needs.

The five Indian Tribal grants will support projects including public health awareness, language and culture preservation, and environmental protection.  For more information on the Learn and Serve America tribal grants, click here.

The Shoshone-Bannock Tribes

• Total Award Amount: $186,588
• Location: Fort Hall, ID
• Program: Rez Nation
• Program Summary:  A two-day leadership and service conference for students attending six high schools serving the Shoshone-Bannock Tribes. The students will be assigned to Youth Tribal Councils to learn about issues in Indian Country, then present their ideas to tribal council members, tribal elders, community members and other adult volunteers. The project will also involve students in year-round service- learning projects.

Poarch Band of Creek Indians

• Total Award Amount: $90,964
• Location: Atmore, AL.
• Program: The Rivercane Plant Restoration Project
• Program Summary: The project will focus on restoration of the native plant that is used for making fishing spears, baskets and other traditional tribal art works. Rivercane restoration will also improve ecosystems and freshwater quality.

Cook Inlet Tribe

• Total Award Amonut: $111,945
• Location:  Anchorage, AK
• Program Summary:  A project involving middle and high school students in using journalism, photo essays, radio and video production to produce public service pieces that the students will distribute through the community as part of their efforts to educate the public about health and wellness issues and Alaska Culture.

Cherokee Nation

• Total Award Amount: $111,973
• Location: Tahlequah, OK
• Program: service-learning projects focused on the environment and tribal culture.
• Program Summary:  Students will monitor water quality in streams across the countryside of the Cherokee Nation that feed into the Illinois River; establish a community garden; and reintroduce plants used in traditional tribal art such as basket making. The projects will also focus on involving parents in service-learning efforts.

Laguna

• Total Award Amount: $148,600
• Location: Laguna, NM
• Program: Summer Youth Corps
• Program Summary:  The Laguna Educational Foundation will use its grant for service-learning projects in tribal history, language and culture. Participants in the Summer Youth Corps, an eight-week program, will learn to plan and implement community-based projects. Through the Youth Media Corps program, participants will create community-oriented PSAs and develop short documentaries on community issues. The Youth Language Corps Program teaches youth the Keresan language and prepares them to become youth language instructors and facilitators.

AmeriCorps Indian Tribes Planning Grants

On April 19, 2010, the Corporation for National and Community Service announced $199,836 in AmeriCorps planning grants to 4 Native-American organizations seeking establish AmeriCorps programs.

The Tribes have earned the planning grants by proposing innovative programs that expand service opportunities to individuals while building the organizations' capacity to respond to community challenges.  They will use the one-year grants funds to develop the tools and systems necessary to support an AmeriCorps program and so applicants are better prepared to compete for an AmeriCorps program grant the following year.

For more information on 2010 AmeriCorps Planning Grants, click here.

Cherokee Nation

• Total Award Amount: $49,841
• Location:Tahlequah, OK
• Program:Strategic Ga du gi
• Program Summary:  The Cherokee Nation will use the planning period to design the Strategic Ga du gi program to help restore the traditional Cherokee lifeways that sustained people through centuries of cultural devastation. The tribe will plan a program in which AmeriCorps members would serve as project site coordinators in critical locations throughout the Cherokee Nation, addressing local community needs related to the environment and healthy lifestyles.

Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation

• Total Award Amount: $50,000
• Location: Pendleton, OR 
• Program: First Foods AmeriCorps Planning Project
• Program Summary:  The Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) will plan an AmeriCorps program that will further the youth development and natural resource protection goals of restoring and sustaining the Tribes' traditional First Foods (water, salmon, deer, roots, and berries) throughout the Tribe's aboriginal use area (Norhteast, Oregon and Southeast, Washington). The tribes will use the planning period to develop evaluation measures, experiential learning activities, leadership development opportunities, and recruitment processes. This process will lead to a program design that accomplishes both youth development and First Foods resource management objectives.

Hopland Band of Pomo Indians

• Total Award Amount: $49,845
• Location: Hopland, CA
• Program: Education Enhancement for Hopland Band of Pomo Indians
• Program Summary:  The Hopland Band of Pomo Indians will plan an AmeriCorps program to improve its school-aged tribal members' academic success and increase the capacity of tribal youth to make healthy decisions. This includes some key elements: creating a successful, structured learning and homework program in the out-of-school hours; developing a core group of tribal and community volunteers to mentor the youth, tutor the students, and act as role models for healthy decision-making; and coordinating the intergenerational community service component of the Hopland Band Tribal Youth Leadership program.

Mescalero Apache Tribe

• Total Award Amount: $50,000
• Location: Mescalero, NM
• Program:Sovereign Nations Planning Grant
• Program Summary: The Mescalero Apache Tribe (MAT) will use the planning period to develop the Soveriegn Nations Service Corps on tribal lands in the four corners area of the southwest United States. The program will mobilize Native American young adults from Pueblo, Tribes, and Indian Nations and provide them with natural resource management service and learning experiences. The long-term goal is to create trained Corps units within each Pueblo, Tribe, and Nation to address natural resource issues within tribes, amongst tribes as well as become a regional rapid response force.