Red Lake, MN – Sept. 15-21, 2024

David and Connie Goertzen arrived to serve as cooks this last week. Richard and Marjorie Heatwole headed back to Virginia. We were also delighted to have Jack Tillotson’s wife, Anna, join us as assistant cook.

The year-long volunteers completed the front deck, stairs and 16-foot ramp at Vanessa’s house. They finished the skirting and painting at Brenda’s house. We signed off both jobs cards. This completed the 58 houses at the Red Lake response.

We closed down the operations at Red Lake, which entailed packing up all the items owned by MDS (such as tables, chairs, furniture, shelving units, etc.). They were loaded onto the MDS vehicles, four pickup trucks, two vans and two trailers for shipping to the warehouse in Columbus, Mississippi. Roger Claassen and his wife Bev came by in his semi-truck/trailer to load up the vehicles and deliver them to Columbus, Mississippi

We packed up the recyclable items and Jack and Anna Tilllotson dropped them off at their recycling depot. All the unused food was delivered to the local charter school, Endazhi-Nitaawiging, in Red Lake. Other miscellaneous items (office supplies, etc.) were donated to the Red Lake Nation.

The co-founder of the charter school, Nathan Taylor, joined us on Tuesday for lunch. Nathan sang a travel song for us. On Thursday evening Eugene Standing Cloud and his wife Donna, joined us. Eugene gave an extensive and fascinating history of how the Red Lake nation came about, and the struggles the natives in the US had to endure with the dominant white settlers taking over the country.

Submitted by Josie Swartzentruber and David Goertzen for the Red Lake Team