Lakota Friends Circle and our partner groups have received several urgent requests for help with food over the past few months. The weather last winter was especially harsh which made travel to a grocery store nearly impossible, and raised parents’ anxiety level with each passing storm. Shelters, overflowing with hungry children and adults, must turn people away for lack of resources.

Nearly 40% of Native households experience low food security, according to a survey by the National Library of Medicine. Children are aware of food scarcity at a young age.
Food costs between 20 and 100% higher on the reservations due to many factors such as lack of transportation and/or gas money. Full service grocery stores are at least 85 miles away. This leaves families with the only option to shop at the local convenience stores with few healthy foods and inflated prices.

Students from five educational sites on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation (in South Dakota) were surveyed: Pine Ridge College Center, Pine Ridge; Wounded Knee College Center, Manderson; Pahin Sinte College Center, Porcupine; LaCreek College Center, Martin; and East Wakpamni College Center, Batesland.
Oglala Lakota College (OLC) students are five times more likely to be food insecure with hunger than the national average.

Please send check donations to: Lakota Friends Circle, c/o Patricia Mason, Treasurer, 125 Pine Tree Drive, Lake Placid, FL 33852.

The levels of poverty shown below are disheartening. It costs a minimum of $2,400 to feed one elementary school child for a year. To properly feed one teenager boy, one needs $3,600 per year.