We’re conducting a fundraiser (Raffle) to help a medical clinic in Porcupine South Dakota.
This clinic is located on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation for the Oglala Sioux or also known as the Oglala Lakota people.
Conditions on this Indian reservation is experiencing over 80% unemployment, almost half of the population over 40 at the reservation have diabetes. Many of the children also have also shown early signs of diabetes.
Life expectancy for men is 48 years. Life expectancy for women is 52.
On this reservation is the Porcupine Clinic, this is the only independent Indian community controlled clinic. If the people have no insurance or inable to pay, this clinic is there to meet their needs - no one is turned away. Native Americans have a gene that makes them susceptable to diabetes -
At the writing of this message, there are currently nine whistles added to the prize pool. I’m adding three and I also give thanks to Jerry Freeman and Mack Hoover who are great guys and are great whistleamakers.
To participate: Donate $10 or more. We’ll draw for prizes after the deadline of March 1, 2006. The money is sent directly to the clinic and the prizes will be drawn on the 15th of march - giving time for the postage to go to the clinic. The first three prizes will be selected by the winners in order of winning, 1st prize decides first, etc. The details and registration are at this web address.
I’d just like to verify what Daniel said about the diabetes endemic in the American Indian population. A few years ago I was chosen as part of a sample group from my tribe to participate in a study the University of Oklahoma was conducting on this problem. I declined to participate, but my sister has since developed diabetes, and is under special diabetic care at our tribe’s clinic. Statistics show an unusually high increase in diabetes since the 1940’s in the population of my tribe, and the same holds true among many tribes throughout the United States.
The Paypal link is now set up, each raffle entry is $10. Each entry will give you additional raffle numbers (which get mailed out manually as I process them). I have the single raffle entry fixed so that it doesn’t charge shipping, let me know if you have any problems with this.
This has really been a learning experience, I gratefully thank Dale for his advice when I spoke to him about this.
After I take some pics for David, I’ll send a new O’Brien Maple High D Whistle to you. You can add it to the raffle whistles. I have 2 O’Brien’s and 2.5 Thin Weasels so I don’t really need another O’Brien or wood whistle right now. I’ll let it go to serve a better purpose than filling a spot in my whistle rack.
Best of luck - hope you get a lot of participation,
To this date: 19-January-2006 the raffle has received a total of $130 in commitments. Plus $4.35 from where the computer glitch calculated a shipping amount on an entry.
Of those commitments, $74.35 has been received electronically and will be sent to the clinic tomorrow.
When you register for the raffle, the feedback form will compose a mail message and call up your email program. Once in there, you have to click ‘Send’ for it to go through.
It’s Friday, a payday for many. For the cost of a Little Black Walton + shipping, folks will help a good cause and have the chance to win a fine whistle. That’s a fair shake.
Do you have an update on the total gifts and pledges to the Clinic?
As of this sunday evening, 29-January-2006, it looks like raffle commitments are up to $328 and over 2/3 of this is confirmed received.
I put up a better feedback form to handle raffle registrations.
I had some problems with the old form, if you have sent a check to the clinic, you should fill out the registration form so that I can send you a raffle number. If you didn’t get a raffle number or a response back, please visit the site fill out the form.
The raffle ends on March 1st and the drawing will be done on March 15th, this gives time for payments to be verified by the clinic. It also gives the whistlemakers more time if needed.
