Press Release | September 13, 2024
Maada’ookiing grants support two exciting, grassroots projects led by Native American individuals in the region
Summer/Fall funding awarded to Sarah Agaton Howes and Ivy Vainio
The Northland Foundation is pleased to feature the two individuals and projects receiving recent Maada’ookiing grant funding. Maada’ookiing (“the distribution” in Ojibwe) is a Native American-led program of the Northland Foundation. Grants of up to $5,000 each are offered three times per year to Tribal citizens, descendants, or those who have kinship ties or affiliation to Native American communities within the foundation’s geographic region. The Maada’ookiing Advisory Board reviewed and approved two grants in late June.
MORE ABOUT GRANT RECIPIENTS AND THEIR PROJECTS
Sarah Agaton Howes received a $2,500 grant in support of Auntie’s Table, an inclusive, accessible space and regular gathering for Native American makers and aspiring makers to be together, learn, share, and build community. Howes initiated Auntie’s Table in January 2024. In addition to moccasin-making, the gatherings also focus on building connections, reciprocity – giving and receiving gifts, and making for loved ones.
Howes is the creator and CEO of Heart Berry, an Ojibwe lifestyle brand. She began making moccasins, beadwork, regalia, and sewing around 2007 and has taught at communities all across Anishinaabe akiing. She also is the author of “Nookomis Obagijigan”, a moccasin pattern book with patterns and instructions in Ojibwe and English. She emphasizes the critical role of support from mentors, teachers, apprentices, and first language speakers to all her work.
“This work is powerful and important, and I am grateful to be able to do it. We deserve to learn our cultural ways. They are our inheritance, and they are waiting for us,” stated Howes. “The more we institute these ways into our life, they will become second hand. Moccasins are the point but are also a tool to build the community, show love to our beloveds, and build our cultural confidence.”
Ivy Vainio was awarded a $2,500 grant for her development of an oral history radio podcast about Carl Gawboy (Bois Forte Ojibwe) and Wendy Savage (Fond du Lac Ojibwe) to share with Native and non-Native communities about the upbringings, art careers, and more about these two respected Ojibwe artists. “First Light: Carl Gawboy, Wendy Savage & the Ojibwe Art Expo” three-part podcast series will air on The North 103.3 FM in November 2024 and will be posted on their website.
Vainio spent 27 years working in American Indian (BIPOC) higher education programs and, for the last seven years, has been working for the nonprofit American Indian Community Housing Organization (AICHO) with arts, culture, sustainability, youth programming, and more.As a photographer, she documents traditional Ojibwe and Native American culture and events. She has previous podcast experience, having led and recorded five podcast series for the Duluth NAACP in 2017.
She stated that among the project goals are to inspire creativity and appreciation and to highlight important and historical Ojibwe ways of living that have been obscured by time.
“It will let someone know that their experiences now might seem mundane and insignificant but one day could illustrate Indigenous resilience and transformation that will benefit not only themselves but others around them. Emerging Ojibwe and Native artists will see themselves in these two artists and be empowered by seeing the impact that these two have had on their/our community,” said Vainio.
MORE ABOUT MAADA’OOKIING GRANTS
The Maada’ookiing program is designed to strengthen relationships with and offer support to Native American community members. Components of the program include funding for individual or group work related to:
- supporting Native American youth
- strengthening use of or access to Native American language (including also digital apps, dictionaries, video, and other creative projects)
- sharing Native American culture/spiritual practices and activities
- sustaining Tribal civic engagement, sovereignty, and self-determination
- shifting the narrative and increasing visibility of contemporary Native American communities
- promoting Native American leadership and experiences (training, networking, and education opportunities)
- engaging in Native American grassroots organizing (projects that strengthen community well-being and/or respond to Native American community issues)
Applications for grant funding can be submitted online at any time through the Northland Foundation’s website. Submission deadlines for each of the three grants rounds are February 15, May 15, and September 15. In addition to grantmaking, Maada’ookiing also includes support for Indian Education, economic development and entrepreneurship opportunities, and Native-led nonprofit organizations to become established in the region.