Our first Culture Camp of the summer is set for Monday, June 3, at the Cokata Wiconi teen center. The camp is open to youth ages 4 to 18, and it will run every day that week from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m.
Culture Camps will take place the first week of each summer month. During this inaugural camp, highlights will include two days of learning about medicinal and traditional plants with Linda Bishop, two days of learning traditional arts with Ray Dupris, and traditional cooking with Tammy Eagle Hunter, our youth programs director.
“With Linda, the kids will learn about picking sage, digging for tipsila and making salve with native plants,” she said. “With Ray, they’ll learn about making traditional arts with buckskin, rawhide and beadwork. Then I’m going to work with them to make papa soup — dried meat, dried turnips and dried corn — one night for supper.”
The camp will end on Friday, June 7 with the eagerly anticipated “International Night.” Scheduled for 5 p.m. to 8 p.m., the event will be open free to community members of all ages. Not only will camp participants, their families and the general public be able to enjoy contemporary Native American foods prepared by Eagle Hunter and Tasina Smith, our new youth programs assistant, they will experience foods and cultures from around the country and around the world.
On this one special evening, our volunteers and staff will cook foods that are native to their countries and regions, offering a unique and memorable opportunity for cultural exchange. The current volunteer corps is multinational, which will allow us to create a truly globe-trotting experience.
Volunteer Karen Reed hails from New York and Florida, and she is going to share traditional foods in the African-American community. Mariel Kennedy is from New Jersey, but she will be sharing her Russian heritage. Dan Woods is from London and plans to prepare English cuisine, while German volunteers Petra Haselier and Judith Tomann will share their country and culture.
Our staff is getting in on the action as well. With Eagle Hunter and Smith covering native foods, Megan Guiliano, youth programs director emeritus, and Jonathan Stuart-Moore, technology coordinator, will prepare Southern comfort foods from Stuart-Moore’s native North Carolina. Anthony Potter, youth programs assistant, will cook some favorite American classics, while Craig Martin, CRYP’s new garden coordinator, will put a fun twist on food from his home state of Indiana.
As an extra bonus, International Night guests will have the opportunity to view the works of art that campers completed during our first-ever Culture Camp week.
“International Night is going to be a wonderful opportunity for campers and their families and friends to celebrate Lakota culture, while also celebrating the cultures of the people they’ve come to know and love here at CRYP,” Eagle Hunter said. “For one night, the world will be at Cheyenne River’s doorstep — we hope to see a large crowd of community members here to experience an evening of great food, great people and cultural exchange.”
For updated program schedules and final dates for special events and incentives, contact Tammy Eagle Hunter at (605) 964-8200 or tammy.cryp@gmail.com.