In the spring of 2015, six Native American middle-school aged children committed suicide on the Pine Ridge Reservation. Touched by this tragic event, I contacted the middle school principal, Temple, to ask her what a body of approximately 200 sisters from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could do to help alleviate the suffering of those children who remained.
After some discussion, it was decided that we would fill backpacks with journals, pens, markers, colored pencils, good books and other items. We chose backpacks because backpacks were considered a luxury item as many of the students could not afford them. I committed to get 144 backpacks filled with school items for the children at the middle school at Pine Ridge.
At our Stake Relief Society presidency meeting, I brought the proposal to Donna Bauer and Jodee Thomas, who embraced the idea wholeheartedly. We had a modest budget, but very quickly there were community members who wanted to assist with the service project. Our Stake provided approximately 60 backpacks and the Rochester Community and other local churches provided 84 backpacks. Read Indeed provided over 200 books, GRADS, a local non-profit, provided pencils, crayons and other school items. The Rochester Community and members of the Rochester Stake provided notebooks, pencil cases, colored pencils and other school items. We assembled the 144 backpacks at our Stake Relief Society conference held in April.
In the summer of 2015, my non-profit, GRADS, took the backpacks to the Pine Ridge Reservation. I refused to mail the backpacks to Pine Ridge. Two ladies from GRADS and I took the backpacks to Pine Ridge and spent two days traveling to South Dakota and touring some very sacred sites. It was a bittersweet moment for me as each child picked the backpack that suited them.
Fast forward to 2016, in my role as a Registered Nurse at Mayo Clinic, I sat with a mother whose son lay gravely ill in the hospital. We talked about family, the Creator, life after death, and so many other comforting things. The mother then asked me if I had ever been to Pine Ridge. I was surprised by this question. “Yes”, I replied. “I was just there last summer to bring backpacks that my church and our community donated to the children of the middle school in Pine Ridge.” The mother was silent and started to cry. “My grandson got one of those backpacks,” pointing to her son. Now my eyes were filled with tears. The mother/grandmother said that her grandson came home with a backpack and she thought he stole it. He said that some women came to the school and said they loved them, to choose life even though it is hard, and then all of the kids at the middle school picked out their own backpack. Her grandson opened the backpack to show his grandmother what he received. During this time, he revealed that he thought about suicide. The brave grandmother then got her grandson the help he needed. The more she thought about the backpacks for all of the children in the middle school and about how complete strangers cared so much about their children, she felt empowered. The mother/grandmother told me that she and other grandmothers started a grassroots group to stop suicide on the reservation.
Fast forward a few more months where I sat in a Relief Society meeting with sisters in the Bemidji Ward. I shared the tender story about our backpack service project and how far-reaching it was, but I really didn’t know how the kids or the grassroots program were working out. A sister spoke up and said, “I can tell you how that story turned out.” This kind sister said that the backpacks turned into a very successful project. The grassroots group and the school use the backpacks to teach about suicide prevention and to help kids stay in school.
This event was a testimony to me that God, through our obedience to help those in need and minister without judgment, will guide and direct us for good to bless the lives of those in the most dire of circumstances.