My Nonprofit Reviews

This week was one of the best weeks I’ve had in a while. It’s so hard to put into words how much this place and the people mean to me, but here is a little bit of what I have learned while traveling to Pine Ridge, South Dakota for the first time during my spring break. Pine Ridge is filled with people with so much faith, a community that builds each other up and treats each other like family, beautiful starry skies that can make you feel so at peace, sites such as the Badlands that can make you feel so small and appreciative of how much more God has created on this earth, places such as Wounded Knee that reminds you of the pain that the Lakota people have endured, but have grown even stronger with and continue to face their challenges head on like the buffalos that they depict so lovingly in cultural drawings and paintings because of their strong hearts. Life is a little different on the reservation, and for this I am so thankful for these experiences. We worked hard with some of the most hardworking families, we rode on top of horse trailers, we rode horses in the fields while it was snowing, we focused on prayer while breathing in extreme heat in Inipi, and we ended each day by reflecting together in a circle, where everyone’s opinions and beliefs are valued equally. I came into this trip with zero expectations, and I left with a new connection to a place where I learned so much from a group of people with the most hopeful hearts. Mitakuye oasin.