Prior Lake, MN - The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community has made a grant in the amount of $125,000 to the Great Plains Indian Gaming Association (GPIGA) of Bismarck, North Dakota. Founded in 1997, GPIGA currently is composed of 28 Indian Nations within the states of North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Wyoming, and Montana. The grant will be used to assist the GPIGA in protecting, preserving, and expanding their treaty rights through legal representation.

J. Kurt Luger, GPIGA's Executive Director, commented on the donation, "This gift from the SMSC supports their brothers and sisters in the Great Plains, who like virtually all of Indian Country are experiencing an attack on their treaty rights. The vision of the SMSC is the realization that Indian Country is only as strong as its weakest link concerning the protection of our sovereignty. GPIGA is comprised of large, land-based tribal nations who have long suffered the symptomatic problems of high unemployment, deplorable health care, and market isolation."

He continued, "The assistance that we received from the SMSC is a large part of our ability to protect the tribal enterprises that we are currently operating or those that are planned for the future from state and federal legislative attacks. The ongoing generosity and leadership shown by the SMSC is a tribute to our traditional beliefs that we must look out for one another. Without this assistance our voice, our needs, our treaty rights would be diminished."

The purpose of the GPIGA is to bring together the federally recognized Indian Nations in the Great Plains region who are operating gaming enterprises in a spirit of cooperation, to develop common strategies and positions concerning issues affecting all gaming tribes, to promote tribal economic development and its positive impacts within the Great Plains, to provide pertinent and contemporary information for the benefit of the GPIGA Member Nations, and to draw upon the unique status of those Great Plains Indian Nations which have treaties between themselves and the United States to influence and shape national legislation and issues affecting tribal economic development.

Though not a member of GPIGA, the SMSC supports Indian Gaming through membership in the Minnesota Indian Gaming Association and the National Indian Gaming Association. "We have long supported the work that the Great Plains Indian Gaming Association does to protect the sovereignty of Indian nations. It's important that we stand together to help one another keep strong in the face of challenges to our treaty rights," said SMSC Chairman Stanley R. Crooks.

For more information about the Great Plains Indian Gaming Association, go to www.gpiga.com or call (701) 255-9275.