Post by blackcrowheart on Nov 27, 2006 15:09:12 GMT -5
Club's goal: 20,000 sweat shirts for tribe's youth
Posted by: "SAL CAMARILLo" salcamarillo1@sbcglobal.net salcamarillo1
Sun Nov 12, 2006 2:48 am (PST)
CRESTLINE - The handful of green bills in Rene Bettmeng's jar wouldn't have been enough to buy dinner for two, let alone winter clothing for 20,000. But hey, it's a start. "We've got about $10," Bettmeng said with a laugh Friday. "We need help." Bettmeng set up shop outside Crestline's post office on a crisp Friday morning to sell sweat shirts for the Mountain Communities Boys & Girls Club. She's been hawking sweat shirts to help out the club for the past five years, a job that another club volunteer, Lauren Reid, said has earned the respect of other club supporters. "We joke about it," Reid said. "She's the only steady income that we have." The club's biggest fundraiser, Bettmeng said, is actually its annual dinner and auction. The 2006 event is scheduled to be tonight at the Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa, and Bettmeng said the club could rake in as much as $150,000. Half a decade in the sweat-shirt trade is a pretty steady gig for a
volunteer, but business on Friday was a little different. Friday was the first day that Bettmeng was also collecting donations to help pay for 20,000 or so sweat shirts that she wants to send to the children and teenagers attending schools in the Shannon County School District, which is in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in frosty South Dakota. "Thursday night it was about 27 degrees. It can get real cold. We just had a snowstorm come," said Monica Whirlwind Horse, assistant principal of the district's Rockyford School. The campus has classes from preschool through eighth grade. The Pine Ridge Reservation belongs to the Oglala Lakota tribe. Almost all of the Shannon County district's students - who study Lakota language and culture as part of their classes - are members of the tribe. Poverty, as well as drug and alcohol addiction, are serious problems in Shannon County, Horse said. Federal statistics from 2004 show that Shannon County's
per-capita income was about $15,600. Across the Mount Rushmore State, that figure was almost twice as high, about $30,200. "There are really no jobs down here," Horse said. Bettmeng said her cousin is a teacher in Shannon County and she has visited the reservation. Her firsthand knowledge of the area's problems inspired her to work on the sweat-shirt project through the Boys & Girls Club. "The kids there break your heart," Bettmeng said. "There's nothing around there. There's nothing for them to do." A $10 donation is enough to send a sweat shirt to South Dakota. Though the leaves on several mountain oak trees have already changed from green to gold, Bettmeng wants to be able to get the shirts to Pine Ridge before year's end. "I would love to have the sweat shirts there by Christmas," she said. Anyone who wants to help with the project can call Bettmeng at (909) 338-5057. Donations can also be mailed to the Mountain Communities Boys & Girls
Club at Post Office Box 2228, Crestline, CA 92325. Anyone wishing to send a check in support of the project should write a specific note on their check so club volunteers know to use the money for that effort.
www.sbsun.com/news/ci_4642053
Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monitory gain to those
who have expressed an interest in receiving the material for research and
educational purposes. This is in accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. section 107.
www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
salcamarillo1@sbcglobal.net
Posted by: "SAL CAMARILLo" salcamarillo1@sbcglobal.net salcamarillo1
Sun Nov 12, 2006 2:48 am (PST)
CRESTLINE - The handful of green bills in Rene Bettmeng's jar wouldn't have been enough to buy dinner for two, let alone winter clothing for 20,000. But hey, it's a start. "We've got about $10," Bettmeng said with a laugh Friday. "We need help." Bettmeng set up shop outside Crestline's post office on a crisp Friday morning to sell sweat shirts for the Mountain Communities Boys & Girls Club. She's been hawking sweat shirts to help out the club for the past five years, a job that another club volunteer, Lauren Reid, said has earned the respect of other club supporters. "We joke about it," Reid said. "She's the only steady income that we have." The club's biggest fundraiser, Bettmeng said, is actually its annual dinner and auction. The 2006 event is scheduled to be tonight at the Lake Arrowhead Resort and Spa, and Bettmeng said the club could rake in as much as $150,000. Half a decade in the sweat-shirt trade is a pretty steady gig for a
volunteer, but business on Friday was a little different. Friday was the first day that Bettmeng was also collecting donations to help pay for 20,000 or so sweat shirts that she wants to send to the children and teenagers attending schools in the Shannon County School District, which is in the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in frosty South Dakota. "Thursday night it was about 27 degrees. It can get real cold. We just had a snowstorm come," said Monica Whirlwind Horse, assistant principal of the district's Rockyford School. The campus has classes from preschool through eighth grade. The Pine Ridge Reservation belongs to the Oglala Lakota tribe. Almost all of the Shannon County district's students - who study Lakota language and culture as part of their classes - are members of the tribe. Poverty, as well as drug and alcohol addiction, are serious problems in Shannon County, Horse said. Federal statistics from 2004 show that Shannon County's
per-capita income was about $15,600. Across the Mount Rushmore State, that figure was almost twice as high, about $30,200. "There are really no jobs down here," Horse said. Bettmeng said her cousin is a teacher in Shannon County and she has visited the reservation. Her firsthand knowledge of the area's problems inspired her to work on the sweat-shirt project through the Boys & Girls Club. "The kids there break your heart," Bettmeng said. "There's nothing around there. There's nothing for them to do." A $10 donation is enough to send a sweat shirt to South Dakota. Though the leaves on several mountain oak trees have already changed from green to gold, Bettmeng wants to be able to get the shirts to Pine Ridge before year's end. "I would love to have the sweat shirts there by Christmas," she said. Anyone who wants to help with the project can call Bettmeng at (909) 338-5057. Donations can also be mailed to the Mountain Communities Boys & Girls
Club at Post Office Box 2228, Crestline, CA 92325. Anyone wishing to send a check in support of the project should write a specific note on their check so club volunteers know to use the money for that effort.
www.sbsun.com/news/ci_4642053
Material appearing here is distributed without profit or monitory gain to those
who have expressed an interest in receiving the material for research and
educational purposes. This is in accordance with Title 17 U. S. C. section 107.
www4.law.cornell.edu/uscode/17/107.html
salcamarillo1@sbcglobal.net