White Swan Organizes With Newly Connected WiFi
In the modern era, everyone can agree that our ability to get online has become a basic necessity. The internet isn’t just a place where e-mails ding, it’s a lifeline for a community.
No matter how loud you shout, without an online presence, you’re easier to ignore. The White Swan tribe’s fight for survival starts with 4 bars of connectivity.
ITDRC Believes in Potential
Walking up to the community center on the Yankton Sioux Reservation in South Dakota, teenagers pass ITDRC’s volunteer tech, Blessing Booth. The boys work together, as the truck rolls from house to house.
Jumping off the tailgate, the boys hoist mattresses and tv box sets overhead into the truck. The roundabout neighborhood near the community center is a half moon of grey furniture out by each curb.
The yards behind the walls of furniture are saturated, squishing under the weight of each load carried across it.
“I’ve seen rural communities struggle before, but this situation seemed pretty urgent,” said Bless “I was happy to help.”
Booth has traveled the country under ITDRC’s projectConnect initiative, one hoping to bridge the digital divide in underserved communities.
Having witnessed the underserved all over America, Booth was still shocked to find the conditions and lack of services the tribe was living with.
The tribe has lacked services since the flooding began last year, now it’s up to the community to organize sanitation. The teenagers on the reservation spend a few days a week picking up trash left curbside.
The sight and smell of trash is a constant problem the tribe faces, one that gets worse after every rain.
In White Swan, the Sioux tribe has been inundated with severe flooding on the southern edge Lake Andes. The flooding started more than a year ago, following two cyclone bombs, an extreme mix of heavy snow, wind, and rain.
Simultaneously, the out of date aqueduct, put in place to control overflow on the lake, became overwhelmed with heavy summer rain.
Without help and denied requests for aid from the government, the sovereign tribal community filled sandbags to protect their community center, hoping to keep the rising waters at a distance.
The tribe organized the flood response themselves, but not everything could be saved. The high waters swept away their pow wow arena and covered their main roads.
Trapped, the tribe had to create new dirt paths that looped around the flood zone.
But when it rains, it pours — especially for the White Swan community.
The overflow from the lake mixed with sewage, flooded basements on the reservation and contaminated their water supply.
As a result, almost half of the 67 homes on the reservation have been condemned. Their infrastructure is ruined, and poverty has been perpetuated by the loss of jobs.
A year later, the reservation homes remain boarded, with cars rusting in the driveway.
“The reservations have to go through layers of red tape and bureaucracy to try and get something accomplished and it’s hard enough with COVID. ,” Booth says, “That’s what’s so great about ITDRC, we can walk in and install a bunch of access points — four sites, one at the tribal court, community college, two on the reservation and at the tribal rights employment office and community center.”
With better internet access, the tribe can apply for grants, organize, and enroll their children in distance learning.
A people faced with repetitive destruction never get the chance to become survivors. They are stuck in a loop; living with the misty smell of mold, the walls peeling and their children, sick.
They believe a better tomorrow exists, and White Swan will fight until tomorrow is a reality.
Problems Here To Stay
“Shelly says our problems won’t fix themselves,” says Deb Saunsoci, case manager for the community and mother-in-law to Shelly Saunsoci. “No one is going to fix them but us,” she adds.
Shelly Saunsoci is vice chair of the community and the employment rights director for the tribe, she knew the internet would change the outlook for her family.
“We couldn’t wait to get you guys out here,” says Shelly, “ITDRC has been our biggest blessing.”
Shelly and her husband Chris Saunsoci have used the internet to establish food deliveries in their community.
Before ITDRC installed connectivity, the families would gather at the community center for pick up, or the relief effort team would deliver.
The “come and get it system” never worked, according to Shelly. It was too difficult to let everyone know when food pick up was ready.
“We are just trying to keep our kids safe,” she adds, “These families have nothing left, we had to do something.”
Shelly knows what they need is a fighting chance — a chance to change the future and to be heard. She believes that fight starts with the internet.
Shelly and her husband are so dedicated to their work, they delivered food knowing the risk of COVID-19 was growing.
“What am I supposed to do?” Shelly asks. “These mammas call me and say Shelly please my babies gotta eat.” Shelly and Chris answered every call and then COVID-19 hit them “like a ton of bricks.”
Now Shelly and her relief team rely on the organization of their food delivery Facebook page more than ever. With half of the team COVID positive at one point, 4 mothers do the cooking for 40 families, feeding kids three meals a day.
“We couldn’t get a hold of people for food delivery without the internet,” says Deb, “It’s a lot safer this way.”
The Climb Keeps the Yankton Sioux Going
Samantha Dion, Shelly’s sister and resident on White Swan, spends her mornings pushing the kitchen tiles back into place. They float up and off the floor with every rainfall.
The basement has become a hazard zone, she bought a pump last month but it quit on her this week. When the children walk too close to the doorway, the steps leading down to floating laundry, she snaps, “get away from there!” She hates what this water has done to her life.
There’s rain in the forecast, and Dion knows she’ll be putting the house back together again by the end of the week.
She leans on the kitchen counter trying to gather her thoughts like every overworked mother, but her eyes land on the “damn cabinets,” and the mental list of repairs grows.
They’ll have to be torn down after the moisture made them sag.
14 people live in Dion’s house. She’s taken in family since their homes are worse off than hers.
“We rely on those food deliveries,” Dion says “My sister is a really big part of the community. Shelly helps everyone.”
Her children don’t run anymore, the mold spores have given them asthma.
Her 8 year old son Gage Archambeau’s breath rattles, and she herself is too sick some days to mop up the groundwater.
“It’s hard to breathe,” Dion says. “You can feel the mold on your clothes and you can feel it in your body.”
Dion’s days are spent planning and repairing. She must boil water for every meal and bath, doing this for 14 people fills her days. With this many kids to look after, the food delivery is a service her family relies on.
“I don’t have anywhere else to go,” says Dion “this is home.”
A summer without the internet left Dion struggling to entertain scores of children. Now, the community internet will aid her homeschooling.
“I feel it,” Dion says “this new Internet is going to change everything for us.”
The connectivity is just the beginning of something new for the Sioux Tribe at White Swan.
“ITDRC knows that rural communities are underserved and at a big disadvantage here without internet,” Booth said following the 4 installations at White Swan.
Shelly and Chris believe the chance to move the reservation uphill will be a goal now within reach, using the internet to contact government agencies and apply for grants that better the outlook for their families.
“We believe in togetherness,” says Deb “We are still family, and we will find a way.”
Since the AP installation, White Swan has suffered another flood. Even now, waters continue to recede after taking out the tribe’s playground and community pool. The tribe, the same as every rainfall, are in the middle of replacing everything as fast as they can get it. Mattresses barely a year old are back on the curb.
With the outside entertainment currently damaged, parents are relieved that now their children can find entertainment online. Life on the reservation has changed since the Internet arrived.
The same teenagers collecting garbage, who didn’t see college in their future, now log onto hybrid learning at the local university. The tribe’s council is planning to add a socially distanced classroom inside the community center, where students can access the WiFi without having to study in the parking lot. The newest addition is Shelly’s pride and joy, a bakery window featured on the side of the building. Now the mother’s that keep their community fed are updating orders online and scheduling families for drive thru pick up.
“I have a vision” says Shelly, “And we are thankful.”
