Hopa Mountain News Blog

Hopa Mountain’s Youth Leadership Program is now accepting applications for the 2012 summer youth leadership camps for teens 13-17. The camp for Park County teens will be held June 18-22, and the Gallatin County camp will be July 9-13. The camps are free-of-charge for accepted participants. In these weeklong residential camps, youth will participate in outdoor problem-solving and skill-building initatives, self awareness exercises, art and science activities, and community service. This summer’s camps also include canoeing and zip lining. Each summer camp is followed by weekly service-learning programs and community service projects throughout the school year.

Hopa Mountain’s Youth Leadership Program promotes positive and sustained educational experiences for Gallatin and Park County teens by fostering direct interaction with the environment, the arts, respected adults and the greater community. These experiences help prepare teens for life as contributing members of their families, peer groups, and communities. The program is made possible through the generous support of the Mountain Sky Guest Ranch Fund, the O.P. and W.E. Edwards Foundation, the Walter L. and Lucille Braun Family Charitable Gift Fund, the Gilhousen Family Foundation, The Treacy Company, and Hopa Mountain members. The Park County program is collaboratively organized with LINKS for Learning in Livingston.

Hopa Mountain is a Bozeman-based non-profit that invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders, adults and youth, in their efforts to improve education, ecological health, and economic development (www.hopamountain.org). Citizen leaders are those individuals — adults and youth — who step forward when they recognize that their community needs help. Hopa Mountain provides these leaders with training, mentoring, and networking opportunities. Promoting and supporting youth leadership and community service is core to Hopa Mountain’s mission. Camp brochures and applications are available on-line at www.hopamountain.org/youthblog or by calling 586-2455.

Join Big Fork author Barry Schieber and Hopa Mountain and Bozeman Public Library staff for a talk by Schieber along with children’s book activities and a book give away on Sunday, April 29, from 1 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. at the Bozeman Public Library. This event is open to the public and free-of-charge to all children and their families.

During this celebration of friendship, Barry Schieber will share memories of the adventures he had with his beloved Bernese Mountain dog, Moritz. A series of children’s books authored by Schieber captures these adventures and will be given away to families. One of the books to be given away to participating children, An Open Heart, was illustrated by Bozeman artist Hedvig Rappe-Flowers.

Schieber recently donated more than 10,000 of his books to Hopa Mountain, a Bozeman-based nonprofit organization that invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders, adults and youth, who are working to improve education. The April 29 event will celebrate this donation and provide free books to children who attend. Through Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers program, Schieber’s books will also be given free of charge to children throughout Montana in 2012 to encourage a love of reading.

The themes of Schieber’s books focus on healing, generosity, and kindness. Nose to Nose is a memoir about healing. Recovering from emergency surgery in a foreign country, Barry Schieber brought Moritz as a puppy back to Montana. He had never thought of owning a dog, any dog – let alone one that would soon tip the scales at over a hundred pounds. A Gift to Share is a book about generosity. The story follows the adventures of Moritz the puppy as he moves from Switzerland to Montana and learns to be a therapy dog. An Open Heart follows Moritz on a hike to the Bob Marshall Wilderness where he teaches Barry about kindness. Moritz has recently passed away.

Explaining his donation, Barry Schieber shared a favorite quote from friend, Tsering Gellek, “I am convinced that while interest, effort, and resources provide the foundation of any undertaking, aligning yourself with inherent goodness is by far the most powerful and surest way to get things done.”

“Barry Schieber’s very generous donation will help to ensure that all Montana children have access to high-quality books of their own,” said Hopa Mountain’s executive director, Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer. “We are humbled by Schieber’s gift and his vision for what is possible for Montana’s children. As a result of this wonderful donation of books, Hopa Mountain has planned a series of children’s book events throughout the month of May to give away his books and encourage summertime reading.”

Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers program is an early learning program serving rural and tribal children and their families. Through community teams of local citizen leaders, StoryMakers supports parents and primary caregivers as they provide the nurturing home learning experiences that lead to children’s success in school and life. Through these citizen leaders, who come from the fields of education, social services, and medicine, Hopa Mountain’s StoryMakers program offers: high-quality, age- and culturally appropriate children’s books as tools to enhance children’s social, emotional and cognitive development; current parent-friendly child development information and book-sharing ideas; and personal encouragement to shape home life for children’s success with relationships and learning. A growing body of research confirms that a strong early learning home environment predicts children’s success as readers and students. Success in school strongly predicts good health and economic self-sufficiency in adulthood.

For more information about the April 29 children’s event at Bozeman Public Library, please contact Hopa Mountain at (406) 586-2455 or info@hopamountain.org

A two-day Grassroots Fundraising workshop will be taught April 20-21 in Bozeman to introduce the basics of fundraising, donor development, and grant writing. This workshop is specifically designed for small organizations or those organizations just starting to develop a fundraising plan and program. It is open to all nonprofit staff, Board members, and interested community members. Everyone is welcome to participate.

This workshop will be taught by Liz Harrison, Director of Development and Communication for the Lewis & Clark Humane Society and Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, Executive Director of Hopa Mountain. The workshop will begin on Friday evening, April 20 from 4 – 8 p.m. at the C’Mon Inn in Bozeman and will continue on Saturday. April 21, from 9 a.m. – 3 p.m.

All handouts and related materials will be supplied at the workshop. The cost is $55/non-members, $45/members. For more information, or to receive a registration form, please email info@hopamountain.org

Hopa Mountain is a Bozeman-based nonprofit organization that invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders, adults and youth, that are working to improve education, ecological health, and economic development (www.hopamountain.org). Hopa Mountain provides leaders with training, mentoring, and networking opportunities. The cost of this workshop is $45 for Hopa Mountain members and $55 for non-members. For more information or to register, please call 586-2455 or email info@hopamountain.org.

Seventh Generation Fund for Indian Development (SGF), in coordination with Hopa Mountain announce Echoes of the Earth, a convening where Indigenous artists, scientists, elders, leaders, and visionaries will share regional, national and international perspectives on climate change, one of the most significant environmental and cultural sustainability issues facing humanity and the natural world today. All activities will take place April 5-6 in Bozeman, Montana and are open to the public free-of-charge.

Echoes of the Earth will open with a reception and gallery talks by Bill Yellowtail (Crow), Director of Tribal Partnerships at Montana State University and Bently Spang (Northern Cheyenne), multi-disciplinary artist and videomaker at the Indian Uprising Gallery on the evening of April 5 from 6:30 – 8:30 p.m. This opening reception is open to the public. Refreshments will be served.

On April 6, Echoes of the Earth will convene from 9 a.m. – 4 p.m. at the Emerson Cultural Center where Native American artists, scientists and culture bearers will join in dialogues in the Crawford Theater to discuss and formulate strategies to share their knowledge and perspectives on climate change and its impacts on cultural vitality and tribal ecosystem health regionally, nationally and internationally. An opening keynote address will be given by Dr. Henrietta Mann (Southern Cheyenne), Founding President of the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribal College, and Seventh Generation Fund Board member. Panel presentations will include Marcus Amerman (Choctaw), bead, glass and performance artist; Michael Bucher (Cherokee) musician and song writer; Bill Eggers (Crow), attorney; Richard Horn (Blackfeet), traditional artist; Lisa Lone Fight (Mandan, Hidatsa, and Sahnish), co-founder of the Indigenous Geo-spatial Consortium and a graduate researcher at Montana State University in the areas of Indigenous and Geo-spatial Science/Remote Sensing; Oren Lyons (Onondaga and Seneca), elder and Seventh Generation Fund Board member; Josh Mori (Native Hawaiian) filmmaker and instructor at Montana State University; Tilton Old Bull, Sr. (Crow), Director of Crow Voices; Gail Small (Northern Cheyenne), Executive Director of Native Action; Bently Spang, Terry Tatsey (Blackfeet), Director of Institutional Development, at Blackfeet Community College; Allison Warden (Inupiaq), performance artist, and Peggy Wellknown Buffalo (Crow), Executive Director of The Center Pole. The event will be facilitated by Tia Oros Peters (Zuni) Executive Director of Seventh Generation Fund and Chris Peters (Pohlik-lah/Karuk), President and CEO of Seventh Generation Fund.

In addition to the presentations, Native artwork by distinguished artists such as Dg House (Cherokee), painter and owner of Big Medicine Art Studio in Bozeman, and emerging artists, such as Moses Yellow Robe (Crow and Northern Cheyenne), metal artist and University of Montana art major, will be on display and available for purchase in the Ballroom. Artwork will be available for sale from 11 a.m. – 2 p.m. in the Emerson Cultural Center’s Ballroom.

“Climate change and especially its impacts on water health and well-being that directly effect Indigenous cultures, peoples and ecosystems is the major threat of the 21st century. It is time to look to and engage with Indigenous traditional knowledge — our artists, culture bearers and visionaries — who hold strategies to bring awareness and action to this critical issue. The time for action is now” stated Tia Oros Peters, Seventh Generation Fund’s Executive Director.

The Seventh Generation Fund is an international Indigenous nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting and maintaining the uniqueness of Native peoples throughout the Americas (7genfund.org). Hopa Mountain is a Bozeman-based nonprofit dedicated to investing in rural and tribal citizen leaders, adults and youth, who are working to improve education, ecological health, and economic development (hopamountain.org). Support for this event has been provided by the Bullitt Foundation, Cedar Tree Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation & Open Society Foundations. It is made possible with generous support from participating Native artists, scientists, and cultural bearers.

For more information, please visit 7genfund.org or call Hopa Mountain at (406) 586-2455.

Seventh Generation Fund and Hopa Mountain are delighted to announce that, in April 2012, we will publish a digital/print on demand volume of collected poetry, short stories, photography and creative works that addresses the complex relationship between indigenous people and climate change. This volume is meant to accompany the groundbreaking Echoes of the Earth conference on art and climate change to be held in Bozeman, Montana scheduled for Friday April 5-6.

As we face the reality of climate change and the possibility of irreversible damage to the biosphere, we are frequently called to alter our behavior and lifestyles, to revisit our relationship with the environment and, somehow, to ‘reconnect with nature’. But what does reconnection mean, and, more importantly, what does it imply? And does art, literature, and specifically poetry, have any role to play in that reconnection? Is it “echoes of the earth”? Can the creative expression of indigenous people help bridge the growing dissociation that pervades the relationships between contemporary humans and the natural world? Is creative expression in itself a form of environmental action, or can it inspire action?

We are now requesting submissions for this volume.

If you would like to submit your work to our anthology, please email up to four poems, photographs or other creative works that clearly fit the brief above to editor William Harjo at willam.harjo@gmail.com We will accept attachments in Microsoft Word format only, or creative work can be included in the body of the email. We will ONLY accept submissions by email. Please include a short biography with your submission, in the body of the email.

The deadline for submissions is April 2, 2012

We are looking for new, previously unpublished poetry – unless it appears in a very recent or forthcoming collection (in which case please note that we have no budget for permissions fees, and inclusion in the anthology would need to be agreed in writing with the relevant publisher of the collection on that basis).

All contributors to the anthology will receive a free copy of the published book (books will be published in e-pub and other electronic formats as well as services such as lulu.com. We reserve the right to Edit content, substance or length of submission.

Echoes of the Earth is sponsored by The Seventh Generation Fund For Indian Development in partnership with Hopa Mountain. Support for this event has been provided by the Bullitt Foundation, Cedar Tree Foundation, Nathan Cummings Foundation, Native Arts and Cultures Foundation & Open Society Foundations.

Hopa Mountain and Sage Solutions will present their workshop, “Creating Boards that Lead: A Discourse on Nonprofit Board Development, Board Operations and Responsibilities” on March 23-24 in Bozeman at the Fish Technology Center’s meeting room in Bridger Canyon. The workshop will begin at 5 p.m. on Friday, March 23 until 8 p.m. and then continue on Saturday, March 24 from 8:30 a.m. – 12:30 p.m.

Presented by Terry Profota, Principal of Sage Solutions and Dr. Bonnie Sachatello-Sawyer, Executive Director of Hopa Mountain, this board development workshop is offered as a learning tool for current members of non-profit Boards of Directors or individuals interested in becoming a Board Member and will focus on roles and responsibilities of nonprofit board members and energizing boards. All handouts and related materials will be supplied at the workshop.

Hopa Mountain is a Bozeman-based nonprofit organization that invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders, adults and youth, that are working to improve education, ecological health, and economic development (www.hopamountain.org). Hopa Mountain provides these leaders with training, mentoring, and networking opportunities. Sage Solutions is a consulting practice led by Terry Profota that specializes in organizational effectiveness, program development, and Board relations. The cost of the workshop is $35 for Hopa Mountain members and $40 for non-members. For more information or to register, please call 586-2455 or email info@hopamountain.org.

Dr. Gregory Cajete (Santa Clara Pueblo) Director of Native American Studies and an Associate Professor in the Division of Language, Literacy and Socio cultural Studies in the College of Education at the University of New Mexico will be the keynote speaker for Hopa Mountain’s annual Native Science Fellows meeting. He will present on Native science and education on Friday, March 2, 2012 at 9:00 a.m.–noon at the Strand Union Building (SUB) Procrastinator Theater on the MSU campus.

Dr. Cajete is a nationally renowned speaker and educator and has authored five books: “Look to the Mountain: An Ecology of Indigenous Education,” (Kivaki Press, 1994); “Ignite the Sparkle: An Indigenous Science Education Curriculum Model”, (Kivaki Press, 1999); “Spirit of the Game: Indigenous Wellsprings (2004) ,” “A People’s Ecology: Explorations in Sustainable Living,” and “Native Science: Natural Laws of Interdependence” (Clearlight Publishers, 1999 and 2000).

This year’s Native Science Fellows meeting is being coordinated by the MSU’s Society of American Indian Graduate Students (SAIGS) as part of their annual service project. “Dr. Cajete bridges worlds to help us deepen our understanding of the richness and complexity of Native Science from the perspective of an indigenous scholar and we look forward to learning from him” says Native Science Fellow and Land Resources and Environmental Graduate student Lisa Lone Fight (Mandan, Hidatsa, Arikara).

Hopa Mountain’s Native Science Fellows Program meeting is made possible by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Hopa Mountain is a Bozeman, MT based nonprofit organization that invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders who are working to improve education, ecological health, and economic development. This event is free and open to the public. For more information, please contact Hopa Mountain at (406) 586-2455 or info@hopamountain.org

Friday, January 27, 12 – 1:30 p.m. at the Bozeman Public Library

If you are interested in exploring new ways to work in the world, consider participating in this lunch time workshop on Gracious Space. Gracious Space is like a secret ingredient or special sauce – regardless of what’s “cooking” in your community or organization, it just makes everything better. Whether the project is a leadership development program, community initiative, difficult conversation on race, a reorganization, performance appraisal, coaching conversation, new vision, mission or strategic plan, a new team, or mediation – Gracious Space can make the relationships stronger and the work flow more creatively. For this workshop, plan to bring a sack lunch and engage in the practice of Gracious Space among friends.

Hopa Mountain offers a virtual seminar on understanding advocacy and lobbying on Wednesday, January 25 at 10 a.m.

What is the difference between advocacy and lobbying? Although most people use these words interchangeably, there is a distinction between advocacy and lobbying that is helpful to understand.
In this Hopa Mountain virtual seminar, learn the difference between advocacy and lobbying and different forms of advocacy that may be helpful to you and your organization in 2012. This seminar is nonpartisan and is open free-of-charge to everyone. It may be especially useful to citizen leaders, nonprofit organizations and business leaders.

This virtual seminar will be led by Dulaney Collins, a grassroots citizen advocate, leader, and presenter. Implementing various forms of advocacy and lobbying, as a private citizen Ms. Collins improved programs and reformed 33 laws in the Virginia legislature.
To participate in this Virtual Seminar with Dulaney Collins on January 25 at 10 a.m. MST, please dial (213) 342-3000 and enter access code 189808.

Hopa Mountain invests in rural and tribal citizen leaders who are working to improve education, ecological health, and economic development. For more information, please visit www.hopamountain.org.

Hopa Mountain, a Bozeman-MT based nonprofit organization is pleased to announce that Native American students attending a tribal college in Montana or Wyoming and pursuing undergraduate degrees in earth sciences, atmospheric sciences, natural resource management, hydrology, fisheries, wildlife management, forestry, and soil sciences are eligible to apply for a $2,500 tribal college Native Science Fellowship or a $5,000 university Native Science Fellowship to be earned working with a community-based environmental science or geosciences organization that matches their career interests. Fellows will be selected through a competitive process. Applications are available on Hopa Mountain’s website at http://www.hopamountain.org/NativeScienceFellows.php

If you, or someone you know, meets these qualifications that you would like to nominate, please email his or her name and contact information to info@hopamountain.org or call Hopa Mountain’s office at (406) 586-2455. The application deadline is January 5.

Hopa Mountain offers this innovative Native Science Fellows program for Native American undergraduate and graduate students to participate in community-based science organizations in an effort to increase their engagement in higher education and geosciences careers. The goal is to increase the number of Native American students who are engaged in community-based geosciences education and careers and to provide role models and work experience for Native American college students interested in the geosciences. Funding for the program is provided by the National Science Foundation.