Rocky Boy plans Christmas Family Night

Staff at the Family Resource Center will be doing their part to bring holiday cheer to Rocky Boy’s Indian Reservation, hosting a Christmas family night.

All Chippewa Cree tribal members and others are invited. The celebration will take place Tuesday, Dec. 22, at 5 p.m., at the Family Resource Center’s office in the former Stone Child College library and gym on Agency Square.

Attendees can look forward to stockings filled with presents, a light dinner and cookie decorating.

There will be a cupcake walk in the building’s gym, an activity that consists of singing or playing music for several seconds, as participants move about. Once the music ceases, participants must stand on a number. The person who presides over the walk will then randomly draw a number from a container. Whoever is standing on the number selected is the winner.

Because they were late this year in laying the groundwork for the party, resource center staff are still planning the party’s details. They said last year’s event included sleigh rides, pictures with Santa and Christmas ornament decorating.

Rose Saddler, a child advocate with the resource center, said the reservation’s stagnant economy, high unemployment and remote location mean that for some people and families, it is the only Christmas event they will get to experience.

Additionally, it provides families with a drug and alcohol free environment in which they can mingle and dine.

“Sometimes, we’ve actually had four generations coming together as a family,” Saddler said, “come and all eat together and do something in, like I said, a drug- and alcohol-free environment, being happy and interacting which other. That’s where our pay is. It’s priceless.”

Men and women from the White Sky Hope Center and an assortment of other volunteers serve food, distribute gifts and direct activities.

“A lot of our families do, too, come in and help, so they donate their time,” said Trina Wolf Chief, director of Rocky Boy Children Exposed to Violence, a program at the resource center.

Because the center cannot use grant money for these events, the family night relies on collaboration from other programs that are permitted to do so, along with outside donations.

Those who wish to make donations in the form of money, food or gifts can do so by contacting the Family Resource Center.