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Red Cross Honors Native American History
Written by
Lesly C. Hallman
, Staff Writer, RedCross.org
Friday, November 05, 2004 — Across the country the American Red Cross is enjoying the benefits of fruitful relationships with Native American communities and celebrating tribal heritage in honor of National American Indian Heritage Month.
The term "American Indian" encompasses hundreds of different tribes and more than 250 languages. Started in 1976, Native American Awareness Week was expanded by Congress and approved by President George H.W. Bush in August of 1990, designating the month of November as National American Indian Heritage Month.
Laguna Pueblo Elementary School in Old Laguna, New Mexico, officially launched the first all-Native American Red Cross club in the United States in December 2003. Many of the club’s projects focus on raising awareness for senior citizens and school children while helping the Mid-Rio Grande Chapter fulfill its humanitarian mission.
In the Pacific Northwest, the Oregon Mountain River Chapter has developed relationships with the three Native American tribes in its area: the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs, the Confederated Tribes of Umatilla, and the Piute Nation. The chapter has Disaster Action Teams on all three reservations, including 15 trained DAT team members who also live on the Warm Springs Reservation.
“Having Native Americans on our team really helps to bridge the cultural gap when we are working on their land,” said Bobbie Bourne, Emergency Services Director for the Oregon Mountain River Chapter.
When a wildfire broke out at Warm Springs earlier this year, the DAT team was able to respond with Red Cross services in a capacity unique to their location.
“It was important for us to learn that the reservation is a sovereign nation, and that we are guests, even we’re with the Red Cross,” said Bourne. “We opened a shelter in a longhouse, and we needed to follow their customs.”
Marcella Hall is a member of the Confederated Tribes of Warm Springs and a volunteer with the tribe's DAT team. She said Bourne and the Red Cross were very accepting of the tribe's needs during the wildfire.
“For anyone to come into the longhouse and put up signs really would not work, because it’s a ceremonial place for the tribe,” Hall said. “Bobbie and the other volunteers were really good about understanding that, so they let us take the lead, but they were there backing us up and supporting us at all times.”
Bourne said the willingness to understand and accept Native American customs has strengthened the relationship between the tribes and the Red Cross. “They were very accepting of us, especially while we were sheltering during the fire this summer,” she said. The chapter now has a trailer with the equipment needed to run a 100-person shelter on Warm Springs, another sign of the bond between the chapter and the tribes.
In Arizona the Red Cross has formed an alliance with some of the state’s Indian tribes to increase and promote blood donations. Since 1998 the region has held more than 40 blood drives with several tribes including the Pascue Yaqui Tribe, the Tohono O’odham Nation, the Yavapai-Apache Nation and the Gila River Pima A’akimel O’otham Tribe.
The relationship between the Red Cross and the Native American community in Arizona goes back several years. In 2002, the Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Scottsdale, Az., donated more than $280,000 to purchase a new state of the art bloodmobile with five motorized donor beds, data lines for electronic donor registration, and upgraded air conditioners to ensure donor comfort during the hot Arizona summers.
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