Warm Winter 2022

Calling ALL OF US everywhere to help those living outdoors STAY ALIVE in the extreme cold here on the Fort Peck Reservation this winter by providing needed heat packs to the homeless.

 

The Fort Peck reservation is located in North-Eastern Montana / Roosevelt County, and is home to a mix of Sioux, Assinaboine, and European descended peoples, with Wolf Point and Poplar being the main population hubs of the reservation.

 

Every winter it gets cold here. Deathly cold. Temperatures can hold between -20F and -30F for 1-2 weeks at a time several times before mid-March. Our Region is actually the coldest spot in the continental U.S. most of the winter (for a little news trivia)! We get used to it, and surprisingly life goes about a normal pace here usually, but since starting to work and make my home up here (I am a CT/Xray tech at the local hospitals) I have always been bothered that there is someone who freezes to death each year.

 

Starting my Christmas hitch I realized that there WAS something that could during our cold winter season, and although my friends and I had gotten some supplies and started handing out “Warm Yer Bones” packs and emergency blankets, a young man was found frozen to death over one of our coldest nights this week- Tuesday 12/28/2021

 

This tragedy lead our local tribal councils to open the 2 respective cultural centers up for warm shelter and food through the rest of this weekend and the subzero temperatures. Both centers are being staffed with local volunteers to oversee 24hrs a day and donations and volunteers providing warm food.

 

But this is only a temporary measure.

Our outdoor dwellers will be back outside after the end of the week and it will still be below freezing every night of the winter…

with several REALLY cold snaps like this one to go yet…

 

There is great need to keep our people warm.

Our mission right now is to keep providing at a minimum, “Warm Yer Bones” packs to everyone living outside part or full time this winter. We are working to continue to establish relationships with both Tribal Councils and local businesses to provide direct on the ground immediate help, and to hopefully go beyond this first simple mission. To find out more about our future goals, please visit our website: www.alltribeswakheya.org

 

My fellow radiology techs have graciously volunteered to build packs all winter, but we won’t have more supplies without your help. I personally sponsored the first 700 heat packs along with 100 emergency blankets and ponchos, then have been busy stuffing ziplocks and delivering supplies directly on the street.

 

Can you help us keep building packs all winter? Our goal is for no one else to freeze to death in 2022…

 

I would like to thank those who have gone before me and taught me lessons about direct action. Thich Nhat Hahn taught me not to wait for a government’s help (his mission rebuilt towns destroyed by both sides in the Vietnam War), Fitzgerald Peterson for being my first friend to show me the way by having coat and blanket drives every December,  and The Black Fairy Godmother for showing me how our greater Tribe is so willing to help REAL PEOPLE in REAL TIME.

I would also like to thank my Radiology Crew and Dept Manager for becoming an assembly line and being gung-ho about this project, The goddess Kat for helping with the web page for the 501 (c)(3) and setting up this go fund me, and all the many teachers I have the past few years that remind me that natural wisdom for situations come with patience.

Of course, I thank all of you for donating, for forwarding this campaign, for visiting our web site and making this movement a success. Any merit for people being warm this winter belongs to all my volunteers and those of you who click the donate button- together we will touch lives with love- no judgement.

 

Your support/donations are tax deductible.

Your gifts save lives.

With deep bows,
CJ Murray