Post by blackcrowheart on Nov 6, 2006 21:46:29 GMT -5
Small Foundation Has Big Goals to Help Rez Families Stay Warm This Winter
Liz Gray 10/28/2006
If you can help one person stay warm this winter, wouldn’t it be worth it?
That’s the motto of (Rev). Audrey Link, founder of the Link Center Foundation. A non-profit organization raising funds for heating and utility assistance for Lakota Siouxan Elders or the disabled on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
Their funding covers less than half of the requests for heating assistance this winter. “Basically we are scrambling like crazy to get funding coming in to help all people, at least one time this winter,†said Link. “We have 200 families at the moment that have applied for assistance with us.â€
The demand is great because of the substandard living conditions on the reservations. The average income on Pine Ridge is approximately $3,500.00 per year with unemployment hovering around 85%.
Winter temperatures in South Dakota are unforgiving with an average of 9* F. Made worse with bitter wind-chill factors at record temperatures reaching –44* below 0*F (1996).
The main focus of the Link Center Foundation are the Elders. However, there are those occasions when the disabled or sick are in crisis situations and critically in need of heat. According to Audrey, the Link Center Foundation finds it cannot, and will not, turn away from them.
Audrey is not Native American although her son is part Cherokee from her husband’s side. She was actually raised in South Africa until she was 18 when she came to the United States. She is a reverend but she does not desire to claim a denomination. And although she has experienced church under many different doctrines, her greatest life experience was in the sweat-lodge with her son. “There was a lady that was running the sweat lodge- I was told she was Lakota,†said Audrey. “We walked in to the clearing and she greeted my son. I was walking behind him and he said, ‘White feather I would like you to meet my mother.’ I swear she could see right down into my soul. It was the first time I felt like I belonged to the human race, that I was an accepted member of the human race.â€
Link said she has heard many preachers talk about a man called Jesus but none of them she has heard teaches what he came to teach. “The teachings I have heard in the sweat lodge, I found, is the closest to Christ’s teachings I have ever come across. He teaches that treating others how you would like to be treated if you were in their shoes,†said Link.
This lifestyle is what lead her to start the Link Center Foundation which has a future goal of creating a non-denominational, multi-cultural teaching conference center. A place of rejuvenation and worship for all denominations and races of people.
“You should never change a person’s basic belief – whether they are Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, whatever – but you shouldn’t be locked into one narrow focus, either. Expand your focus,†said Link. “Take people as they are, accept them as they are, and basically come back to my big theory which is respect for all life.â€
In the meantime they are trying to help with heating. One goal is to set up a cottage type industry on the rez which would allow artists to work at home and make a living. “We want to help the people but without interfering with their lives.†Said Link.
All members of the foundation are on a volunteer basis. All donations go directly to the cause. If you are interested in donating with a credit card or would like more information, go to www.linkcenterfoundation.org. If you would like to donate with a check, make checks payable to the Link Center Foundation and mail to:
Link Center Foundation
P.O. Box 2253
Longmont, CO 80502-2253
For more information about the organization, go to www.linkcenterfoundation.org
Rev. Link ended by saying find God in the way you were designed to do. Accept for yourself what feels most comfortable. “His teaching comes in the form for your greatest understanding- in the plants, songs, words of a paragraph - something that makes you say, ‘Wow, I can make it another day’.â€
Liz Gray 10/28/2006
If you can help one person stay warm this winter, wouldn’t it be worth it?
That’s the motto of (Rev). Audrey Link, founder of the Link Center Foundation. A non-profit organization raising funds for heating and utility assistance for Lakota Siouxan Elders or the disabled on the Pine Ridge reservation in South Dakota.
Their funding covers less than half of the requests for heating assistance this winter. “Basically we are scrambling like crazy to get funding coming in to help all people, at least one time this winter,†said Link. “We have 200 families at the moment that have applied for assistance with us.â€
The demand is great because of the substandard living conditions on the reservations. The average income on Pine Ridge is approximately $3,500.00 per year with unemployment hovering around 85%.
Winter temperatures in South Dakota are unforgiving with an average of 9* F. Made worse with bitter wind-chill factors at record temperatures reaching –44* below 0*F (1996).
The main focus of the Link Center Foundation are the Elders. However, there are those occasions when the disabled or sick are in crisis situations and critically in need of heat. According to Audrey, the Link Center Foundation finds it cannot, and will not, turn away from them.
Audrey is not Native American although her son is part Cherokee from her husband’s side. She was actually raised in South Africa until she was 18 when she came to the United States. She is a reverend but she does not desire to claim a denomination. And although she has experienced church under many different doctrines, her greatest life experience was in the sweat-lodge with her son. “There was a lady that was running the sweat lodge- I was told she was Lakota,†said Audrey. “We walked in to the clearing and she greeted my son. I was walking behind him and he said, ‘White feather I would like you to meet my mother.’ I swear she could see right down into my soul. It was the first time I felt like I belonged to the human race, that I was an accepted member of the human race.â€
Link said she has heard many preachers talk about a man called Jesus but none of them she has heard teaches what he came to teach. “The teachings I have heard in the sweat lodge, I found, is the closest to Christ’s teachings I have ever come across. He teaches that treating others how you would like to be treated if you were in their shoes,†said Link.
This lifestyle is what lead her to start the Link Center Foundation which has a future goal of creating a non-denominational, multi-cultural teaching conference center. A place of rejuvenation and worship for all denominations and races of people.
“You should never change a person’s basic belief – whether they are Baptist, Catholic, Methodist, whatever – but you shouldn’t be locked into one narrow focus, either. Expand your focus,†said Link. “Take people as they are, accept them as they are, and basically come back to my big theory which is respect for all life.â€
In the meantime they are trying to help with heating. One goal is to set up a cottage type industry on the rez which would allow artists to work at home and make a living. “We want to help the people but without interfering with their lives.†Said Link.
All members of the foundation are on a volunteer basis. All donations go directly to the cause. If you are interested in donating with a credit card or would like more information, go to www.linkcenterfoundation.org. If you would like to donate with a check, make checks payable to the Link Center Foundation and mail to:
Link Center Foundation
P.O. Box 2253
Longmont, CO 80502-2253
For more information about the organization, go to www.linkcenterfoundation.org
Rev. Link ended by saying find God in the way you were designed to do. Accept for yourself what feels most comfortable. “His teaching comes in the form for your greatest understanding- in the plants, songs, words of a paragraph - something that makes you say, ‘Wow, I can make it another day’.â€