Prior Lake, Minnesota - Pencils, erasers, notebooks, backpacks, and other school supplies were made available free to students in Minneapolis and St. Paul Indian Education Programs due to a donation by the Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community.

A donation of $20,000 to the Minneapolis Public Schools will pay for activity fees as well as school supplies for most of the 1,800 children in the Indian Education program which serves 80 schools. About the SMSC donation Tim Brown, Director of MPS Indian Education, said, "We are grateful for their help. The impact they have on American Indian families in the Minneapolis Public Schools is enormous. It makes learning a lot easier when you have the supplies you need. On behalf of all the American Indian students in the Minneapolis Public Schools, I say thank you, miigwtech - pidamaya."

A donation of $22,000 to the St. Paul Public Schools will pay for tutoring and school supplies for 400 students who qualify for the free and reduced lunch program. "The smiles that we see on our families' faces when they come to pick up school supplies and on the faces of the students as they put on their backpacks is heartwarming," said Kathy Wilke, Supervisor for the Indian Education Program for the St. Paul Public Schools. The SMSC donation also went for tutoring. "Last year we provided tutoring at 25 schools and 2 community agencies to 95 students grades K-12. We were able to show that 73.6% of students that we worked with showed improvement in their GPA and/or attendance. Due to fiscal constraints, the tutoring budget was cut by half this year. Without the SMSC donation we would not be able to continue to see those kind of improvements with our students." The St. Paul Indian Education Program provided services to 943 Native American children at 108 different schools; seventy schools have less than 10 Indian students each. "Tutoring and academic assistance, like school supplies, and monitoring were found to be the number one need in a needs assessment of our students," Wilke said.

With these donations, the SMSC has made donations totaling $215,500 to the Minneapolis Public Schools and $247,937 to the St. Paul Public Schools. In fiscal year 2005 the SMSC donated $120,050 for winterwear and school supplies to Indian students in the Minneapolis and St. Paul Public Schools Indian Education programs, at the Circle of Nations Wahpeton Indian School, at Four Directions Charter School, at Na-Way-ee Center School, and to those who live in the Little Earth Community.

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