Journey of a Tree

We are a small, rural school located on the Leech Lake Indian Reservation, which includes the National Chippewa Forest, named after the Chippewa band of tribes to which most of our students belong. This year, our forest has been chosen to provide the National Christmas tree, which will be lit on December 6th in Washington DC. We are very proud to provide this gift for our nation.

Due to the high level of poverty in our school, some of our students have never been away from the reservation. Even looking at pictures of the government buildings sometimes leaves a lot to the imagination. We also discuss how government works and the events that go on; learn about senators and representatives, and our part in the working of our country.

Since the announcement of our forest being chosen for the National Christmas tree, we have been working on ornaments to send to decorate the tree and learning about the journey of our tree.

We very much wanted to raise funds to take students to the tree lighting in Washington DC, and spend some time learning in our great capital. Of course, this requires a great amount of funding, which our school does not have. Raising money from families that live in poverty is a difficult job. It isn’t that they won’t give; it is the amount they can provide is very limited. Yet their children deserve these opportunities. We have decided to fundraise to take our students to Saint Paul to see the Minnesota capital and the tree lighting there.

You can help by providing a donation to help our students have an opportunity to travel to St. Paul to see our state capitol tree lighting. We would be so grateful. The impact that would be made on our children is immeasurable.

Thank you for your consideration and support by helping us provide this opportunity for this very deserving group of young people.