Standing Rock Sioux Tribe
Food Distribution Program
Charles "Red" Gates, Program Director
PO Box "D"
Fort Yates, N.D. 58538
(701) 854-7238
(701) 854-7299 fax

There's no real hunger on the Sioux reservation, not in the traditional sense, insists Red Gates. No one is malnourished. No one starves. But he makes this claim with a sadness in his eyes behind his purple sunglasses, because he knows that the commodities program he runs, along with Food Stamps, WIC, school breakfast and lunch programs, are the only reasons that the Standing Rock Sioux generally have enough to eat.

"Like the other Lakota Sioux reservations, we have close to 90 percent unemployment here," he said, shaking his head. "In the 24 years I've worked for the tribe, I've seen things go from bad to worse. So many of our people are so dependent on welfare, they think they're stuck there. I don't."

Indeed. In fact, Gates says, it was a near thing for him. As a young man, he followed the path of so many other modern-day Sioux. "I got married young. I got into heavy alcohol. My wife and I had five kids before I was 25." But somehow, he says, he got turned around, landing a job with the U.S. government and later, nearly a quarter of a century ago, taking over the reservation's food-distribution program. Over the years, he's developed a reputation as a spokesman for American Indian nutrition programs, rising to the level of president of the National Association of Food Distribution Programs on Indian Reservations -- a coalition that has made it possible to pressure the Department of Agriculture, over years, to change its philosophy from one of dumping surplus commodities on the reservations to one at least marginally oriented toward nutrition.

There's nothing really innovative about the program at Fort Yates. As on many Indian Reservations, the old commodities-distribution program continues very much as it did before the Food Stamp Act of 1973 replaced the system for poor people in much of America. But on the reservations, a monthly food allocation remains an option to food stamps for those who choose it, and about half of Standing Rock's recipient families do, representing some 720 households, nearly 2,000 people who report to the program's gray warehouse on a dusty street in tiny Fort Yates for boxes of groceries each month in lieu of a food-stamp allocation, or outlying families who receive their shipments by truck to drop points closer to their homes on the 2 1/2-million-acre reservation.

Why do so many prefer the commodities option? A variety of reasons, Gates says. Grocery shopping is limited to one small supermarket and one or two convenience stores, where prices are high. The commodities allocation offers good value, if the food is uninspiring: A single person's monthly load comes to 75 to 80 pounds of assorted items, mostly non-perishables, largely cans, which the federal government values at $37.50 but is actually worth two to three times that much on the open market.

Further, the paperwork is minimal and quick, requiring only moments to qualify an applicant who brings in sufficient proof of income and fills in a two-sided single sheet, a far cry from the 14-page Food Stamp application with its waiting list. And the atmosphere at the warehouse is friendly and supportive too, a far cry from the stories of angry, hostile food-stamp workers. Individuals come to a window where the month's choices are listed, ranging from apple, grapefruit, pineapple, orange or grape juice to lentils, pinto beans or Great Northern beans and canned tuna, chicken or beef. ("The tuna is pretty good," Gates says. "The beef? It's horrible. But some people can make good things out of it.") When the recipient makes out her list (elderly folks are given priority in line), the program's new computer system spits out an invoice, and the crew behind the long counter, with the speed and efficiency of long practice, quickly assemble the order and carry it out to the car. "For a family of four, the food covers this whole counter," Gates adds. In addition to food, the program distributes information on nutrition and health, including brochures outlining, for example, the relationship between a good diet and preventing heart disease. Classes in diet and nutrition are offered, and in a recent bright idea, the program is running a recipe contest, with cash prizes and bright ribbons for the best new ideas for turning USDA canned goods into appetizing meals. Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Food Distribution Program (continued)

The program appears efficient yet humane, and Gates goes to considerable lengths to ensure that the books are up to date and accurate and that things run well. Signs warn against anyone under the influence of drugs or alcohol coming onto the premises, with the stern warning, "Law & Order Will Be Called;" and even smoking is forbidden in the warehouse.

So when Gates sits back in his office and looks through the interior glass windows at his domain, he does so with justifiable pride.

But at the same time, he knows it's not enough, and he doesn't have a magic wand. What can be done to relieve poverty at Standing Rock, or for that matter on all the nation's Indian reservations? Bold leadership would help, he says, confiding that he wishes the Tribal Council were less conservative about trying new economic-development ideas, such as making commercial use of the tribe's growing buffalo herd for meat and tourism. He wishes there were some way to end the turf battles that make it difficult for the reservation's commodities, WIC, food stamps and programs for the elderly to work together, since their concerns and even their clientele overlap. He'd like to see a community gardening project begin on the reservation, remembering with obvious nostalgia and pleasure the large garden his great-grandmother used to grow. But most of all, he says, economic development -- in some way, shape or form -- has to be the key. The recent development of tribal colleges, like Standing Rock College at Fort Yates, has made a big difference in offering reservation youngsters a chance at an education, and he's excited about that; but when they graduate, they face the choice of leaving the reservation to find jobs or stay home and find none . . . and Lakota culture being what it is, the majority stay.

"Four years ago," he recalled, "the state of North Dakota held a poverty conference. The farm crisis was going on, people were leaving the state, and they were finding all these people on welfare. They were really excited about that. So they asked me to speak at their conference, and I told them, 'What your group is talking about . . . we've faced it all our lives.'"

All the feature stories on @GRASS-ROOTS.ORG's pages are reported and written by Robin Garr, a prize-winning journalist who has visited more than 500 innovative grassroots programs in all 50 states since 1990.

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