This past holiday season, the Cheyenne River Youth Project sought to deliver holiday gifts to 1,000 children in its annual Wo Otúh’an Wi (Moon of Giving Away Presents) Toy Drive. The youth project announced today that it shattered its original goal, serving 1,521 children in 16 communities across the 2.8-million-acre reservation.
Each child received up to three gifts from their wish lists, which meant staff and volunteers organized, wrapped and distributed literally thousands of gifts in December. According to Julie Garreau, chief executive officer, this herculean task would not have been possible without the youth project’s dedicated supporters across the country.
“We have a small staff, less than 10 people,” she observed. “Yet we were able to deliver many thousands of gifts to hundreds of families, fulfilling each child’s personal wishes. This is thanks to volunteer groups who organized regional toy drives for us in their metro areas, volunteers who drove the ‘toy trucks’ to Eagle Butte, organizational partners who contributed much-needed funds, and countless individual donors who adopted wish lists, purchased gifts from our Amazon toy list, sent gift cards and provided wrapping supplies.
“We also are deeply grateful to our community members, who showed up day after day to help our staff and long-term volunteers wrap and prepare gifts for our families,” she added. “Everyone came together to lift up our children, and they did a beautiful job.”
The toy drive program is near and dear to Garreau’s heart. A survivor of the late boarding school era, she recalled one particular holiday season at her school when she was just 6 years old.
“We each got one present, and the packages were labeled by gender and age,” she remembered. “When I opened mine, I saw that the toy was broken.
“When we started the toy drive at CRYP more than three decades ago, we wanted to make sure that our children would not have experiences like that,” she continued. “Each child should experience the joy and magic of the holiday season. They should feel special and loved, and at least for one day, wishes should come true.”
That’s why Garreau and her team have fought so hard, particularly during difficult times like the Great Recession and the Covid pandemic, to keep the toy drive going — and to keep it personal. No matter how big the program gets, she said, children will still receive beautifully wrapped packages with their names on the tags, and their gifts will be what their hearts desired.
Once again, this would not have been possible without the local and national relationships CRYP has cultivated since its founding in 1988.
“We couldn’t have done it alone then, and we can’t do it alone now,” Garreau said. “We dream big here at CRYP, and our donors and volunteers dream big with us. They care about our young people, and at its heart, that’s what the toy drive is all about. During the winter solstice and holiday season, we want our children to know how treasured they are. They matter.”
This year’s supporters included the Block (Square); Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe’s ABC Commission and Indian Child Welfare program; Columbia Sportswear/Roundhouse Foundation; Fairview High School in Boulder, Colorado; “Friends of CRYP” group in St. Louis, Missouri; Lennar Custom Homes; Native Hope; Patterson Earnhart Real Bird & Wilson LLP (Native Law Group); Pope High School in Marietta, Georgia; Rapid City Woodworkers Association; Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community; Spirit of Sovereignty Foundation; Walmart, and hundreds of individual donors worldwide.
To learn more about the Cheyenne River Youth Project and its programs, and for information about making donations and volunteering, call (605) 964-8200 or visit www.lakotayouth.org. And, to stay up to date on the latest CRYP news and events, follow the youth project on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and YouTube.
The Cheyenne River Youth Project, founded in 1988, is a grassroots, not-for-profit organization dedicated to providing the youth of the Cheyenne River reservation with access to a vibrant and secure future through a wide variety of culturally sensitive and enduring programs, projects and facilities that ensure strong, self-sufficient families and communities.