Empowering Warm Springs Artists: A Partnership with Warm Springs Community Action Team

First Peoples Fund (FPF) staff recently visited the Warm Springs Reservation to meet with the Warm Springs Community Action Team (WSCAT), our first Oregon-based FPF Native Arts Ecology Building (NAEB) grantee. 

WSCAT is a community-based nonprofit focused on financial empowerment and small business development on the Confederated Tribes of the Warm Springs Reservation. Central to WSCAT’s programming is its Individual Development Account (IDA) program, an asset-building savings account that is one of the most extensive reservation-based IDA programs in the country. WSCAT is making tremendous inroads, helping Warm Springs artists expand into new and growing art markets in Central Oregon (which includes the rapidly growing city of Bend) and increasing its work with young artists.

FPF site advisor Felecia Freeman, with support from NAEB Program Manager Ryan Parker, visited WSCAT staff to learn more about the programs they have developed to support artists on the reservation. Led by Executive Director Chris Watson, WSCAT has an energetic staff working hard to help improve the economic conditions on the reservation as economic development and employment opportunities are lagging behind.

One such project WSCAT is carrying out is renovating a century-old commissary building once operated by the Bureau of Indian Affairs to serve as a small business incubator. WSCAT recently moved the building near US Highway 26, which runs through the reservation from Portland and leads to Bend, Oregon. The commissary will also house a restaurant, space for art vendors and an outdoor food cart pod. In addition to other tribal member-owned food carts, the pod will feature WSCAT’s very own Twisted Teepee, which provides popular comfort foods and training to young tribal members.

The community is relatively young, with a median age of 26. WSCAT chose to focus on this age demographic in its First Peoples Fund NAEB grant. One of its objectives was for ten Warm Springs youth to complete a filmmaker training course and create a short film called "Arthur's Voice."

WSCAT staff, in particular Reina Estimo, brought in Warm Springs filmmaker LaRonn Katchia and Wichita & Kiowa actor Cara Jade Myers (Killers of the Flower Moon) to work with ten youth to create this film featuring a teenager from Warm Springs, Arthur Miller, Jr. (Yakima, Wasco, Warm Springs), who is an active member of the Warm Spring Youth Council. A positive role model, Arthur is a singer and drummer who loves basketball and fishing with his family. His tribes' homelands are along the Columbia River and the salmon are integral to his culture.

Upon completion of the project, the film was featured at the Scalehouse Art Gallery in Bend, Oregon, in conjunction with a showing of Killers of the Flower Moon, which Cara Jade Myers attended.

Thanks to a grant funded by Margaret A. Cargill Philanthropies, the Warm Spring Community Action Team will continue in the NAEB program. First Peoples Fund is looking forward to the strides they will make in the upcoming year!

Minnesota NAEB Gathering

On September 17, First Peoples Fund staff Justin Huenemann (CEO), Jaren Bonillo (Director, Program Weaver), Ryan Parker (Program Manager, Community Development), and Hilary Smith (Associate Director of Development) hosted a convening in St. Paul, Minnesota with five Minnesota-based Native Arts Ecology Building grant partners. The partners who attended were 4-Directions Development (Red Lake), American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO) (Duluth), Native American Community Development Institute (NACDI) (Minneapolis), Indigenous Roots (St. Paul), and the Minnesota Indigenous Business Alliance (MNIBA) (St. Paul). Indigenous Roots’ Executive Director Mary Anne Quiroz graciously provided their community room for the group to meet for the day, and provided breakfast and lunch as well as tech support. 

The theme of the gathering was “Supporting Indigenous Artists and Native-led Artist Organizations in Mni Sota.” Each organization made a presentation to the group giving an overview of how they make an impact in their respective Indigenous Arts Ecology. In addition, we held a discussion on the current state of the Native artist field in Minnesota and conducted an asset mapping activity. FPF also invited six artists for an artist panel: Delina White, Frank Buffalo Hyde, Caitlin Newago, Gordon Coons, Paul Wenell, Jr. (Tall Paul), and Steve Premo.

Following the day’s activities, the group was able to identify areas where improvements can be made to strengthen their Indigenous Arts Ecology. Considering the day’s free-flowing exchange of ideas and dreams on how to better assist Native artists, as well the connections made among the attendees, FPF is encouraged by the direction our five grant partners and six artist guests are taking to support their respective communities. Their drive, innovative ideas, and commitment to the Native arts field shows they are ready to carry the torch of the Indigenous Arts Ecology into 2025 and beyond.