Native Americans raise funds for center

A Native American group held a twofold fundraiser yesterday. The group is raising money to lease office space.

At the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, the Native American Community Center of Bloomington held a benefit dinner and silent art auction. At the same time across town at Nick’s English Hut, some servers donated their tips and the restaurant donated 10 percent of its profits for dine in to the center. All of the proceeds from the event are going towards leasing a permanent office for the group to work out of.

The NACC’s mission is to serve the American Indian, Alaska Native, and Native Hawaiian population of southern Indiana, and also work to reach out to the general public on Native American affairs.

They are closely associated with the First Nations Educational and Cultural Center of IU. The First Nations director, Joe Stahlman is also one of the NACC board members.
For the past year the NACC has been operating out of members’ homes and cars. The group’s board members have spent a lot of time putting the event together.

“We’ve had to canvas businesses and artists for donations,” said Kylo Prince, a NACC board member. “Some of the stuff was made by board and community members. It was really a large effort by a lot of people.”

Prince himself made a soup, one of the many examples of Native American cuisine at the auction.

In addition to the food and art for auction, the night was a just as much a celebration of native culture as it was a fundraiser. The group called in a group to perform a Native drum circle and Laura Reagan, the group’s historian, preformed a ceremonial dance and encouraged the audience to join in.

The public turned out to support the group and their cause along with people closely allied to the group, and their members.

Bloomington resident Marla Rosen heard about it on the group’s program on WFIU.

“I appreciate hearing their stories,” Rosen said. “And stories of their resilience and tenacity.”

Their stories and struggles are still important to the group in doing their mission.

“A lot of culture was lost through the move for genocide against Indian people,” Prince said. “Since they couldn’t eradicate us they wanted to assimilate us, and take us away from our language, our culture.”

Prince said that one of the group’s main missions was to educate the public on Native Americans and their diverse cultures.

“Some of the ideas floating around are that we don’t exist anymore,” Prince said. “Or that we are all savages. Not all of us have ponytails and wear feathers all the time. We have normal lives just like everyone else.”

Marilyn Cleveland, the group’s Head Elder, worked with the NACC since the beginning and worked with the First Nations Center before that. To her, educational outreach on Native people’s diversity was paramount for the group.

“That’s something I think the public needs to be informed about,” Cleveland said. “There is so much that they teach in the schools about Native American people that is not true. I hope that through our educational outreach we can bring more things into the school to teach the children.”

The Head Elder is an adviser, peacemaker and an authority on cultural affairs.

“I hope we can have a place for Native people to come and socialize and get the things they need,” Cleveland said.“We can support them and teach about the diversity about the Native American people. We are a wide diverse group of people. We have many different cultures and many different beliefs.”