On remote reservations, the holiday season can have an adverse impact on parents due to financial stress. This year, Partnership With Native Americans® (PWNA) helped bring the holiday spirit to families in North Dakota on the Standing Rock Reservation. Our Program Partner Steffnie at the Fort Yates Early Childhood Tracking program received dozens of holiday stockings for children up to 4 years old through PWNA’s Sioux Nation Relief Fund (SNRF) program and its Santa Stop service.

One happy mom was 26-year-old Ashlynn who received a stocking for her 10-month-old son Sebastian. Ashlynn has used services at the Early Childhood program for five months and shared that he gets “help with saying ‘mama’ and ‘dada,’ sitting up on his own, and crawling.” Ashlynn’s involvement with the program has come full circle as she also attended as a child.

Ashlynn is excited to celebrate Sebastian’s first holiday season. She looks forward to “him seeing all the lights and reacting to presents.” However, her main concern now is getting her paycheck in time to buy gifts. A full-time student, Ashlynn studies criminal justice and works at a local casino while her boyfriend is a stay-at-home dad for Sebastian. Ashlynn shared that it’s a challenge raising her son on a single income. Thankfully, she receives help from WIC to buy formula.

Overall, women earn 82 cents on the dollar paid to men. For Native women, it’s even less – only 60 cents for every dollar a non-Hispanic White man earns each year. Over their careers, Native American women lose nearly $1 million to the pay gap.

Fortunately, Ashlynn’s SNRF stocking was full of helpful products like baby healing ointment, toothpaste, and hand sanitizer. She told us, “I really like the bottle and dish soap. I’m always running out of wipes, and I’ll be good on supplies for a while.”

Ashlynn explained that the local store sometimes runs out of supplies, so she drives an hour to Bismarck for shopping. She told us, “I plan ahead and make sure the roads are okay. Sometimes we’re forced to stay home because of the snow. If we happen to not make it out of town, sometimes the dollar store doesn’t have the things we need, like medicine, shampoo, and baby wash. They go fast.”

To SNRF donors, Ashlynn shared, “The supplies mean a lot. Sometimes people without jobs can’t get this. Anything that helps is always nice because no one else does this kind of service.”

Make the holiday spirit bright for Native children like Sebastian. Donate to SNRF today.