Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce — a.k.a. Minnesota — to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.
Today Leah and Cole chat with Maggie Lorenz, an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Ojibwe and descendant of the Spirit Lake Dakota Nation. She is the Director of the Wakan Tipi Center & Executive Director of the Lower Phalen Creek project, which is a Native-led environmental conservation nonprofit on the East Side of St. Paul.
Maggie tells us about the reclamation of a Dakota sacred area, Wakan Tipi, and the plans for a nearby community gathering and ceremony space. The Wakan Tipi cave is within the Bruce Vento Nature Sanctuary, just east of downtown St. Paul. The project seeks to preserve the space and restore and honor the purpose of the sacred site for the future. Maggie has worked in education, environmental justice, cultural healing, and resiliency which lead her to become the Executive Director of the Lower Phalen Creek project.
Chi-Miigwech to Maggie for sharing her path to this important work!
Native Lights: Where Indigenous Voices Shine is produced by Minnesota Native News and Ampers, Diverse Radio for Minnesota’s Communities with support from the Minnesota Arts and Cultural Heritage fund.
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More from Native Lights
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- Tabitha Chilton’s Gift for Building Access & Trust in Healthcare SystemsLeah and Cole chat with Tabitha Chilton, a White Earth Nation member who serves as Sanford Health’s Native American patient advocate in Bemidji, Minnesota. Tabitha’s focus on outpatient care at the Joe Lueken Cancer Center helps Native communities access healthcare throughout Northern Minnesota
- Jewell Arcoren: Healing With Language and The Next GenerationJewell is a community activist and the Executive Director for Wicoie Nandagikendan, an Ojibwe and Dakota language immersion preschool in Minneapolis. There, she pursues her commitments to early childhood education, language revitalization and addressing intergenerational historical trauma.
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