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Native American students on remote reservations dream of college but face obstacles and inequities: 61% are low-income, about half graduate high school, and 16% graduate college. Please remember them with funding for scholarships and school supplies.
Success Story – Butterfly in the Blue Sky
For most of Alex Azure’s life, she attended schools operated by the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) where only 53% of Native students graduate. Had she been an average student, she might have been one of them – but Alex is not average. She has an incredible work ethic and support from family, friends, and donors of the American Indian Education Fund® (AIEF).
A member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians, Alex grew up on a farm in North Dakota, an environment that “taught me to be self-reliant and work hard for what I want.” So, she’s the first generation in her family to attend college, and all the sleepless nights and intense studying paid off.
In May 2024, she graduated from Turtle Mountain Community College with a bachelor’s in elementary education. Her goal? “For as long as I can remember, it has always been my dream to work with kids. I want to be a preschool teacher so I can start children off on the right foot in their education.”
Alex’s Native American name is Butterfly in the Blue Sky. With her bachelor’s completed, she plans to pursue a master’s and eventually a doctorate in elementary education. And when all that’s done, she will return home. “There’s a bigger need here, and I’ve known this place all my life, so it would be really hard to leave.”
AIEF scholarships were a significant source of relief for her last two years in school. Alex thanked AIEF donors like you for your generosity, saying, “The AIEF scholarships helped kickstart my educational journey and shrink my stress. It is very rare that there is a local scholarship, so thank you for supporting me and other Native students like me.”
