The Main youth center and Cokata Wiconi teen center are looking for sponsors to support art and athletic enrichment activities for our after-school and summer programs.

CRYP works hard to introduce the youth who attend our centers to the fundamentals of a healthy lifestyle. As part of these efforts, we will be offering weeklong lacrosse workshops in the upcoming months for both children and teens. In order to hold these classes, we will need to purchase lacrosse balls, sticks, padding, and goal sets.

The art program at CRYP is also looking to expand in the upcoming months. We are looking to introduce kids to many different forms of artistic expression, including graffiti art, pottery, and painting. To allow the kids to experiment with these new art forms, we will have many diverse needs including canvases, paint, paint brushes, clay, glazing supplies, pottery supplies, acrylic paint, spray paint, exterior paint, and sealant.

We are actively looking for people willing to make monetary or in-kind donations to fulfill these needs. You can donate online by clicking the link below or by mailing donations to the Cheyenne River Youth Project, P.O. Box 410, Eagle Butte, SD 57625.

Sponsor a Birthday Cake at The Main!

Few days in a child's life are as precious as his or her birthday. Unfortunately, for far too many underprivileged children, that day passes with little celebration - if any at all. CRYP wants to make sure that the young children who attend The Main youth center have the birthday festivities they deserve.

Each month, The Main hosts a birthday party for the children whose birthdays fall during that month. To offset the cost of each party, CRYP seeks monthly sponsors to contribute $40 for the birthday cake. Please consider sponsoring a birthday cake in 2014-15! Every dollar makes such a difference in the lives of Cheyenne River's children.

Meet Our

Board of Directors

VICE PRESIDENT
Jeremy Patterson

TREASURER
Guthrie Ducheneaux

DIRECTORS
Betsy Mitchell
Peggy Gallipo
Jeffrey Meyer
Karla Abbott
Lonnie Heier

For more info and bios, click here!

Support CRYP When You Shop Online!

What if CRYP earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or, what if a percentage of every online purchase you made supported our cause?

Amazon, for example, will donate 0.5% of your purchase price to CRYP when you shop at smile.amazon.com. To make shopping even easier, you can add the AmazonSmile 1 Button to your web browser.

Then there are GoodSearch and GoodShop.

GoodSearch.com is a Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine, get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up.

GoodShop.com is an online shopping mall that donates up to 30% of each purchase to your favorite cause. Hundreds of great stores have teamed up with GoodShop so that every time you place an order, you'll be supporting your favorite cause.

And, if you download the
"GoodSearch - Cheyenne River Youth Project - CRYP toolbar," our cause will earn money every time you shop and search online EVEN if you forget to go to the GoodShop or GoodSearch sites first! Click here to add the toolbar.

While you're online, you even can make a secure donation with your Capital One credit card. Simply click here. You even can add an easy-to-use widget for future contributions.

Needs List

CRYP relies on in-kind donations as well as funding to continue our mission. If you'd like to help, please check out our Needs List. You also may contact us at (605) 964-8200 if you'd like a copy of our most up-to-date list and price quotes for particular needs. Thank you for your support!

Our Mission

The Cheyenne River Youth Project is dedicated to providing the youth of the Cheyenne River reservation with access to a vibrant and secure future through a variety of culturally sensitive and enduring programs, projects and facilities, ensuring strong, self-sufficient families and communities.

September 2014 News

Support the New Waniyetu Wowapi Art Park Before September 15!

This Thursday in Rapid City's Art Alley, six graffiti artists will join together to paint a mural in support of the brand-new, innovative art park at CRYP campus in Eagle Butte, South Dakota. According to Sara Johnson Levy of About This Life Inc., the organization responsible for the Art Alley mural project, the artists will paint together from 6 to 9 p.m. on Thursday, September 11.

About This Life's Aaron "AMP" Pearcy and the Dahl Fine Art Center's Tyler "Siamese" Read are two of the artists who will be working on paintings that are intended to raise both awareness and funding for the 25-year-old, not-for-profit youth organization's art park, which has been christened Waniyetu Wowapi - "Winter Count" in the Lakota language. The Waniyetu Wowapi Art Park will be formally dedicated at 3 p.m. on Monday, September 15 at the CRYP campus on East Lincoln Street.

Learn more about the Waniyetu Wowapi Art Park, and the role the art park can play in the life of the Cheyenne River community, and the lives of its children, click here.

Those interested in making a contribution can sponsor a section of the Waniyetu Wowapi Art Park by making a tax-deductible donation. Those funds will be used to purchase materials for building the art structures. Online donations can be made by clicking the link below. For more information, call the CRYP headquarters at (605) 964-8200.

CRYP Announces

Fall Garden Programming

This fall, CRYP will celebrate its bountiful 2014 growing season in the 2-acre Winyan Toka Win garden with a series of special fall programs. All will be open to community members of all ages.

On the roster: canning classes, CRYP's annual Community Harvest Festival Dinner, and a special focus-group dinner that will address food systems.

"We started offering garden-related community workshops and classes at Cokata Wiconi last year, thanks to support from the Northwest Area Foundation, and we're thrilled to offer continuing programs," said Julie Garreau, CRYP's executive director. "Canning, for example, was a common household skill just two generations ago, but it's been lost in recent years. We believe that sharing this knowledge with our community is an important step toward enhanced food security, sovereignty and sustainability here on the Cheyenne River reservation."

Learn more about the "Canning for Beginners" classes (featuring pickles and chokecherry jelly) on September 18 and 25, the annual Community Harvest Festival Dinner on September 24, and the Food Systems Focus Group Dinner on October 16 here.

25th Anniversary Festivities Abound on Labor Day Weekend

Labor Day weekend is "Fair Weekend" on the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation - and this year it also was a special weekend to commemorate the grassroots, not-for-profit organization's 25th anniversary in conjunction with the annual Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Fair, Rodeo & Powwow. This year's festivities took place from Friday, August 29 to Monday, September 1

CRYP played a major role on the weekend calendar, with the Leading Lady Farmers Market and a signature edition of Midnight Basketball on Friday; a community give-away at the wacipi grounds on Saturday evening; a special CRYP float in the Labor Day Parade; and full breakfast, lunch and dinner service at the Keya Cafe.

In fact, CRYP staff recently got word that its eagerly anticipated Labor Day Parade float took first place in the "Youth Groups" category, earning $150 to support youth programming and services at the CRYP campus. Congratulations to all the staff and volunteers who worked so hard on this year's float! To learn more about the weekend's festivities, click here.

School Supplies Drive Serves
511 Children on Cheyenne River

On Wednesday, August 20, CRYP hosted its annual School Supplies Drive distribution in the Cokata Wiconi teen center' gymnasium. To date, the 25-year-old, not-for-profit youth project has provided 135 families and 511 children - from Headstart through high school - with the school supplies they need to start the new school year off right.

Supplies included backpacks, protractors, compasses, calculators, mechanical pencils, writing tablets, fat pencils, fat crayons, folders, pencil cases, notebook paper, kid-friendly scissors, erasers, glue sticks, pencils, pens and rulers. This annual distribution is part of CRYP's Family Services program, which was founded in 2002 to manage the organization's influx of in-kind donations throughout the year.

"Students and families who attended the distribution event last Wednesday were able to choose which supplies they wanted," said Pamela Stolz, an AmeriCorps VISTA volunteer who works full time at CRYP and helped coordinate the event. "Anyone coming in after that day was able to take home a pre-filled backpack loaded with supplies."

Many of the donations came from Alexandria, Virginia-based Running Strong for American Indian Youth, and numerous individual donors contributed to this year's School Supplies Drive as well. With their support, CRYP was able to ensure that hundreds of children, and their families, on the impoverished Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation were able to enjoy the equivalent of that eagerly anticipated back-to-school shopping trip.

"Veggie of the Week" Shines Light on Sustainable Agriculture

In the four weeks since CRYP kicked off its new "Veggie of the Week" initiative, the program is proving to be a great success - and it's shining a powerful light on the 25-year-old, not-for-profit youth organization's sustainable agriculture initiatives, including the Leading Lady Farmers Market, the Keya Gift Shop, the Keya Cafe and Coffee Shop, and the 2-acre, non-GMO, pesticide-free Winyan Toka Win garden.

Each week since August 4, CRYP has chosen an in-season vegetable as its Veggie of the Week. That vegetable is incorporated into meals, snacks, and educational activities at the Cokata Wiconi teen center and The Main youth center; it's incorporated into menu items at the Keya Cafe; it's processed for use in goods to be sold through the Keya Gift Shop; and it's highlighted at the weekly farmers market. There, each Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m., community members and visitors can pick up plenty of the fresh featured produce at bargain prices and take home a special recipe of the week. Click here to learn more about the program and CRYP's sustainable agriculture initiatives, and to find links to great recipes!

Thank you so much for your interest in our youth project, and for your ongoing support as we pursue our mission in the community.

To learn more about the Cheyenne River Youth Project and its programs, and for information about making donations and volunteering, call (605) 964-8200 or visit
www.lakotayouth.org. And, to stay up to date on the latest CRYP news and events, follow the youth project on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter.

Sincerely,

All of us at the
Cheyenne River Youth Project