One aspect of our project is the use of local builders. Those who hope to help with construction on Native American reservations often bring crews of skilled labor from off the reservation. The approach can be an efficient one, but it does mean that local residents do not themselves gain experience with directing projects on their own. They may assist with low-skill tasks, but the supervision and skilled labor iare done by others. When the work crews depart, they take their expertise with them.

For the Stronghold Project, we are relying on local skilled labor. Thanks to a generous grant from the Evangelical Education Society, we are able to employ an instructor in the Applied Science program at Oglala Lakota College as a superviser and hire some recent graduates of that program as carpenters.

Bob Prichard

The Coffee/Gift Shop

We left the August 2010 conference convinced that what we wanted to do was to build some type of model structure that made use of sustainable forms of construction. We were, however, not initially sure what that structure might be. We talked over a variety of possibilities in monthly conference calls--a straw bale wrap around an existing trailer, a straw bale improvement to an existing church building, a shed that could be used to house tools and supplies for a small garden, a small model house, etc--before deciding on a plan that would dovetail with a local micro-finance idea.

Members of the Two Bulls family, who are active at Christ Church, Red Shirt Table, were hoping to build a small structure that could be used to sell coffee and handmade goods to tourists who pass along Route 40 (BIA highway 41).

We agreed to pool our efforts, planning for a staw bale structure that could be used as a cofffee and gift shop.

Bob Prichard

Digging the foundation

On Saturday, July 16 Mike (far right) and Rick Two Bulls (show above with Church of England priest Stephen Hoyle) met at the project site with Lenny Lone Hill of the applied science department of Oglala Lakota College to talk about digging the foundation.   The plan is to dig a 42" trench and to fill the lower portion with local stone, while the upper portion will be of concrete. The technique is designed to limit expense and to limit the size of the carbon footprint of the construction project.

Bob Prichard

We have a structural engineer!

Good News!  A member of St. George's Episcopal Church in Fredericksburg, Virginia, who is a structural engineer, has agreed to review the drawings for the projected coffee house/gift shop to make sue that they are structurally sound...  God will provide.

Bob

Remembering my Father

My father Edgar Allen Prichard (1920-2000), who is shown at left with his younger brother Ben, was born and spent most of his youth in Brockton, Montana, a small town in Northeastern part of the state located on the Fort Peck Reservation. Fort Peck is home to Assiniboine, Nakoda, and Dakota peoples, but also of some people of European American background. My grandfather, who was a jack-of-all-trades and something of a scoundrel, had moved to Brockton in order to operate a one-man coal mine; he lost interest in the project and left the area leaving his wife and two sons in Brockton.

My father left Montana for college in Oklahoma and service in World War II and settled after the war ended in Virginia, which was my mother’s home. His early experience on Fort Peck, however, gave him a lasting interest in Native American culture and made him a long-time supporter of various small scale projects designed to enhance the life of Native Americans. I suspect that some of his enthusiasm and interest passed on to me.

Bob Prichard