A “fresh wind” is blowing through Whiteclay after nearly a year with beer stores’ closings

Once the sale of alcohol stopped last year in Whiteclay, Nebraska, the suffering that had permeated that community for years stopped. Life is emerging in Whiteclay and it is like a “fresh wind,” said Bruce BonFleur, co-founder of the faith- based Lakota Hope Ministries in Whiteclay. 

“The change is awesome, just incredible! There is no one being stabbed in the streets anymore, there is no one being drunk and falling down in the middle of the street anymore, there is no more drugging going on. We haven’t seen a change in Whiteclay like this for nearly a century,” he said.

The small Nebraska town of only a dozen or so people lies just over the border from the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota. For years, Whiteclay liquor businesses had exploited families on the reservation where 85 percent of the families who live there are affected by alcoholism, with much of the alcohol coming from the town of Whiteclay, according to Whiteclay Public Health Emergency Task Force preliminary report issued in December 2017.  

In September 2017, the Nebraska Supreme Court ruled because of a technicality in the appeal of the case, to uphold the Nebraska State Liquor Commission’s ruling to close the four stores, based on commission’s ruling that there was a lack of law enforcement in the Village of Whiteclay. Once the closing happened, healing began, BonFleur said. 

According to the task force report, alcohol is prohibited on the reservation, but that had not stopped its residents from crossing the border into Whiteclay to purchase alcohol where three-and-a-half million cans of beer were sold each year, most of which ended up in the hands of residents of the Pine Ridge Reservation.

The known national average for fetal alcohol syndrome is less than two per 1,000 live births, yet one out of every four children, or 250 for every 1,000 children born on the Pine Ridge Reservation have fetal alcohol syndrome, according to the report. 

Steps had already been initiated by the state with the creation of the task force, and by local and Pine Ridge residents, to begin the redevelopment of the community, which has three main areas of focus: economic development, health, and the development of a memorial for the area. Many state and local entities are being consulted as the work progresses. These entities include the Nebraska Tourism Commission, Panhandle Prevention Coalition, St. Monica’s Behavioral Health Services for Women, The University of Nebraska, CHI Health, Panhandle Area Development District and others. 

Planned projects for the area include the following: the construction of a cell phone tower in the area; the creation of a treatment facility which straddles the Nebraska and South Dakota border sitting west of Whiteclay on tribal land; facilitating the establishment of training resources to the area, including creating a Makerspace and other economically-based initiatives; and securing the design for a Whiteclay Memorial.

Makerspace

According to the task force report, the concept of a Makerspace would provide a medium for the Lakota people to be able to use their skills and abilities to produce traditional goods with equipment and tools provided in the facility. The Makerspace would also provide a platform to market these goods in a modern economy. An online store would be a created so that producers can sell their unique products eventually. The project would be funded through private donations and grant dollars. 

Those interested in helping with the redevelopment of Whiteclay, and find out more about the planned Makerspace, should log on to www.whiteclayredo.com 

 

Nebraska Living Times

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Grant, NE 69140
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