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In This Issue
Volunteer with CRYP in 2015!
CRYP's Sponsor Enrichment Activities
Sponsor a Birthday Cake at The Main
Meet Our Board of Directors
Support CRYP with Amazon Smile, GoodSearch & GoodShop, and Capital One
Check Out Our Needs List
Our Mission
Support RedCan Through Crowdrise!
Passion for Fashion Serves 165 Teens This Spring
Art Interns Learn Graffiti Art from Top Talent
Hall of Fame: Anthony Potter
Partner of the Month: FriendSwap
Quick Links
  News

 

CRYP is actively seeking volunteers to work in our Cokata Wiconi teen center and The Main youth center. 

 

If you are interested in applying for our volunteer program, please visit our website and click on the volunteer link for more information.

 

You also can read our recent article about our volunteer program here




 

Sponsor Enrichment Activities for CRYP Youth

 

The Main youth center and Cokata Wiconi teen center are looking for sponsors to support art and athletic enrichment activities for our after-school and summer programs. 

 

CRYP works hard to introduce the youth who attend our centers to the fundamentals of a healthy lifestyle. As part of these efforts, we will be offering weeklong lacrosse workshops in the upcoming months for both children and teens. In order to hold these classes, we will need to purchase lacrosse balls, sticks, padding, and goal sets.

 

The art program at CRYP is also looking to expand in the upcoming months. We are looking to introduce kids to many different forms of artistic expression, including graffiti art, pottery, and painting.  To allow the kids to experiment with these new art forms, we will have many diverse needs including canvases, paint, paint brushes, clay, glazing supplies, pottery supplies, acrylic paint, spray paint, exterior paint, and sealant.

 

We are actively looking for people willing to make monetary or in-kind donations to fulfill these needs. You can donate online by clicking the link below or by mailing donations to the Cheyenne River Youth Project, P.O. Box 410, Eagle Butte, SD 57625. 

 

 

 

 

 


Sponsor a Birthday Cake at The Main!
Main Birthday Party 1
Few days in a child's life are as precious as his or her birthday. Unfortunately, for far too many underprivileged children, that day passes with little celebration - if any at all. CRYP wants to make sure that the young children who attend The Main youth center have the birthday festivities they deserve.

Each month, The Main hosts a birthday party for the children whose birthdays fall during that month. To offset the cost of each party, CRYP seeks monthly sponsors to contribute $40 for the birthday cake. Please consider sponsoring a birthday cake in 2014-15! Every dollar makes such a difference in the lives of Cheyenne River's children.




Meet Our
Board of Directors
VICE PRESIDENT
Jeremy Patterson

TREASURER
Guthrie Ducheneaux

DIRECTORS
Peggy Gallipo
Jeffrey Meyer
Karla Abbott
Lonnie Heier

For more info and bios, click here!



Support CRYP When You Shop Online!
What if CRYP earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or, what if a percentage of every online purchase you made supported our cause?

Amazon, for example, will donate 0.5% of your purchase price to CRYP when you shop at smile.amazon.com. To make shopping even easier, you can add the AmazonSmile 1 Button to your web browser.

Then there are GoodSearch and GoodShop.

GoodSearch.com is a Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up.

GoodShop.com is an online shopping mall that donates up to 30% of each purchase to your favorite cause. Hundreds of great stores have teamed up with GoodShop so that every time you place an order, you'll be supporting your favorite cause.

And, if you download the
"GoodSearch - Cheyenne River Youth Project - CRYP toolbar," our cause will earn money every time you shop and search online EVEN if you forget to go to the GoodShop or GoodSearch sites first! Click here to add the toolbar.

While you're online, you even can make a secure donation with your Capital One credit card. Simply click here. You even can add an easy-to-use widget for future contributions.

Needs List
Three girls

CRYP relies on in-kind donations as well as funding to continue our mission. If you'd like to help, please check out our Needs List. You also may contact us at (605) 964-8200 if you'd like a copy of our most up-to-date list and price quotes for particular needs. Thank you for your support!
Our Mission


Spanish Class at The Main
The Cheyenne River Youth Project is dedicated to providing the youth of the Cheyenne River reservation with access to a vibrant and secure future through a variety of culturally sensitive and enduring programs, projects and facilities, ensuring strong, self-sufficient families and communities.
 
Join Our Mailing List
April 2015 News

Support RedCan Graffiti Jam
Through Crowdrise!

South Dakota's Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation comprises two of the poorest counties in the United States, yet it is imaginably rich with the strong, beautiful, enduring Lakota culture. In a sense, Lakota culture and graffiti culture have much in common - graffiti culture also has proven to be so powerful that the poverty in which it has been immersed cannot hold it back.
   
These two worlds will collide for the first time this summer at RedCan, Indian country's first-ever graffiti jam. The event will take place on July 8-9 in CRYP's Waniyetu Wowapi ("Winter Count") Art Park in Eagle Butte and on July 11 at Art Alley in Rapid City. And the 26-year-old, not-for-profit, grassroots youth project has launched a Crowdrise campaign to help raise funds.
   
CRYP also is working closely with featured artists to provide special incentives for Crowdrise donors. All donors will receive vinyl sticker packs courtesy of Siamese. Those donating $30 or more will receive an 11x17 copy of the RedCan Poster, signed by the headlining artists. For $50, donors will receive an empty paint can signed by a headlining artist. And donors who contribute $75 or more will receive a screen print of work created by Biafra.
   
At press time, Denver-based graffiti artist East announced that he also is planning to contribute to the Crowdrise incentive program. For a $200 donation, he is offering a copy of the new DF crew book, "Decaying Future." Its 170+ full-color pages feature rare artwork and exclusive photography. Each book from the drive will come with a sticker pack and signatures from various DF crew members, along with a full-page custom drawing on the inside cover by East.

All Crowdrise funds will be used for paint, art supplies, food and beverages, as well as to help cover the artists' travel expenses.

Please consider donating funds to support this exciting inaugural event!

"It all goes back to our youth," explained Julie Garreau, CRYP's executive director. "People tell me all the time how revolutionary this art park and our art internship program are. That's exciting, but even more exciting is that we are revolutionaries for the sakes of our children. It's without ego. We're breaking new ground for our kids, and for the future of our people, our community and our great Lakota nation.





Passion for Fashion Serves 165 Cheyenne River Teens This Spring

For 14 years, CRYP has celebrated the strength, achievements and limitless potential of the young ladies who live on South Dakota's remote, 2.8-million-acre Cheyenne River reservation through a special annual program called "Passion for Fashion." The 26-year-old, not-for-profit youth organization started Passion for Fashion in 2001 to ensure that Cheyenne River's teens would have everything they need for prom night; this year, the beloved springtime program served 165 young people.
   
A significant number of the teens attended CRYP's signature Passion for Fashion event on Saturday, March 14. The rest visited the youth project's East Lincoln Street campus afterward, as schedules allowed. All were able to choose their dream dresses, shoes, jewelry and other accessories for this year's high school prom.
   
The theme for this year's Passion for Fashion was "Glamour and Graffiti," an unbridled celebration of creativity and positive self-expression that fully transformed the Cokata Wiconi ("Center of Life") teen center. The March 14 festivities kicked off at 1 p.m. with luncheon in the farm-to-table Keya ("Turtle") Cafe, where the teens were surrounded by colorful, edgy Pop Art and Street Art.

"We had women from so many diverse walks of life in that room," added Julie Garreau, CRYP's executive director. "Award-winning photographers, founders of not-for-profit organizations, women with master's degrees in social work, mothers who are raising their children while working and going to school... it was truly inspiring."
   
Garreau herself is an example of a local success story. She founded the grassroots, not-for-profit youth project in 1988 and has shepherded it through its transformation from a little volunteer-run youth center to a large campus with youth center, teen center, family services program, organic garden, farm-to-table restaurant and public art park.
  
 "Our message to our girls was a simple one," she explained. "Recognize your own potential, find your passion, be willing to work hard, and believe in yourself. There's nothing you can't do, once you set your mind to it."


Art Interns Learn Graffiti Art From Some of the Country's Top Talent     

CRYP's first art interns are now deeply involved in their internship coursework, thanks to several renowned professional artists who are teaching them the basics of graffiti and street art. They include lead instructor Peyton Scott Russell, a Minneapolis-based artist and art instructor; Tyler "Siamese" Read, an artist who also serves as the arts education engagement coordinator for the Rapid City Arts Council; and Biafra Inc., who also is based in the Twin Cities and has exhibited his work around the world.
   
Peyton (as he is known professionally) taught "Graffiti: The Art of Creative Lettering" at the CRYP campus on March 27-28. During the three-session course, he shared the method he developed to help fledgling art students understand structure, balance and space for drawing and painting letters. And it involves much more than writing.
   
"When spaces are manipulated, interesting shapes and dynamic letter forms appear, which is found in graffiti-styled letters," Peyton said. "It's very typical for students to go through a learning period to gain a better understanding of this."

To learn more about the art internship program and the teens' coursework with Peyton, Siamese and Biafra Inc., click here


Hall of Fame: Anthony Potter 

Enrolled Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Anthony Potter grew up in Eagle Butte, South Dakota, in the heart of the 2.8-million-acre Cheyenne River reservation. His house was just down the street from the original "Main" youth center, founded in 1988 in a defunct Main Street bar.

The Cheyenne River Youth Project's original Main was an all-volunteer-run organization dedicated to providing 4- to 12-year-olds with a safe place to play, do homework and enjoy meals and snacks after school and on Saturdays. And Anthony says it definitely filled a need in the community.

"There really wasn't anything for kids to do in Eagle Butte before 1988," explains Potter, now 23. "We didn't have a movie theater, a bowling alley, an arcade... we didn't have anywhere to go. Once the Main opened, my brother and I would go over there every day. We loved it, because there was always something to do and new people to meet, and we learned interesting things all the time. The best part is the Main was always there for us.

"I didn't go as much once I got older," he continues, "but when I was a teenager, I started volunteering for many of the programs the youth project had to offer."

To learn more about Anthony, click here!

Spanish Class at The Main
Partner of the Month: FriendSwap
 
Over the years, CRYP fundraisers have taken many forms. One such fundraiser stands out.

For 13 years, FriendSwap in Washington, D.C., has played match-maker for hundreds upon hundreds of young professionals - and donated the proceeds to the 26-year-old youth project. This spring, 735 single Washingtonians attended the 13th annual FriendSwap party and raised close to $14,000 to support CRYP's youth programming and services (pictured here: Spanish class at The Main).

FriendSwap was founded by attorney and Cheyenne River Sioux tribal member Heather Dawn Thompson in 2002. Today, it's led by national best-selling author Kerry Reichs.

"We're so excited that this partnership still works so well after all these years," says Reichs, who has published several books and splits her time between Washington, D.C., and Los Angeles.

"I'm grateful and thrilled that Kerry has taken the helm," Thompson says. "She's taken FriendSwap to its most financially successful year yet!"

So, what is FriendSwap? Here's how it works: FriendSwap pairs each participant with several proposed "matches." Then, for a minimum $20 contribution, the "swappees" attend a grand party to meet those matches. Sound familiar? It might. FriendSwap was ahead of its time. To learn more, click here!
Thank you so much for your interest in our youth project, and for your ongoing support as we pursue our mission in the community.

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, LinkedIn and Twitter.



Sincerely,
 
All of us at the
Cheyenne River Youth Project