Gallery • 10 Photos

Mathias posing in front of Mount Rushmore.

(Editor’s Note: The original opening of the story mischaracterized the purpose of the trip. The wording has since been changed.)

Marisa Mathias, a PV U.S I history teacher, always ends her school year teaching about the Native American tribes. However, she never realized the impact that American policy had on tribes today.   With her best friend, fellow teacher, Ms. Leah Jerome, an AP U.S. II and AP World History teacher,  Mathias realized that she had the opportunity to truly understand and see this impact first hand.

From July 31 to August 12, Mathias and Jerome travelled to South Dakota. The first week of their trip consisted of sightseeing at Mount Rushmore, the Crazy Horse Memorial, Custer State Park, and the Badlands.

The second week of their trip was spent on the Cheyenne River Reservation where Mathias and Jerome volunteered at the Cheyenne River Youth Project (CRYP).

“Their heartland is in southwestern South Dakota. It has this great, lush land of forests, called the Black Hills, and that’s where they lived,” said Jerome. “They found gold down there in the 1850s and they were forced off the land even though according to the Laramie Treaty, it was their land.

According to Jerome and Mathias, after being relocated from the Black Hills, the people of the Lakota Tribe, who now live on the Cheyenne River Reservation, were no longer able to depend on the land to sustain them because most of the people of the Lakota tribe were hunters. As a result, they had to rely on the government to send them food.

However, many outsiders didn’t see the people of the Lakota tribe as suffering. Instead, they viewed the Lakota tribe as lazy for depending on the government. Today, Cheyenne River which is located in Dewey County of South Dakota is the most poverty stricken county in the United States.

After spending a week with the people of the Cheyenne River reservation, Jerome and Mathias were greatly moved by their strong sense of family and community and how they are always trying to help each other.

“I realized how much giving back to others has impacted me. Yeah I made a meal for a kid one day but that kid taught me so much about appreciating what you have in life. The kid could be super happy but really, that kid had nothing for dinner that night,” said Jerome.

Mathias and Jerome made dinner for about two dozen kids for three of their nights, built a billboard, chaperoned midnight basketball, gardened, made blackberry juice, and helped clean.

“We always complain about how there is such a long line for me to get a buffalo chicken sandwich today and it puts things in perspective to see that some kids know for a fact that they aren’t going to be getting lunch,” said Mathias.

Jerome has been donating prom dresses, christmas items, and anything else that might help the people on the reservation, every once in awhile, for the last ten years. However, she made it clear that her relationship with CRYP was very distant. Now, after being able to go and to visit the people that have been receiving her donations, Jerome, in correspondence with Mathias, are encouraging students to donate coats to their coat drive for the tribe. Boxes can be found near the new gym entrance,  the sandwich line, by the main entrance, and in Jerome (234) and Mathias’(230) classrooms. The coat drive is active from now until November 1.

The trip inspired Mathias and Jerome to create a Pascack Period course. The students in their course will be holding collections and fundraisers throughout the year for the Lakota tribe.

Mathias and Jerome were so moved with their experience that they hope to take students to  volunteer at CRYP over the summer.

“It made me want to form a relationship with the tribe because there is a lot of need there and we have so much here. We are really hoping to make this trip a tradition and to make a long – standing relationship between Pascack Valley and CRYP,” said Mathias.

For more pictures of the trip, check out @Marisa_Mathias on Twitter.