Fort Belknap's Hawley on CNN Top 10 Heroes

A Fort Belknap Indian Reservation woman who has been helping others deal with illness has received another honor from national news broadcaster CNN, and could be voted on by the public for CNN's Hero of the Year.

Tescha Hawley, founder and executive director of Day Eagle Hope Project, has been announced by CNN as one of its Top 10 CNN Heroes.

People worldwide can vote at https://www.cnn.com/world/heroes on which of the Top 10 Heroes should be the Hero of the Year, with the winner announced by Anderson Cooper Sunday, Nov. 10, by Anderson Cooper on "CNN Heroes: And All-Star Tribute."

Voters can submit up to 10 votes every day through Dec. 5.

Hawley and the story of her project were featured on CNN in August.

When asked this morning about the nomination, Hawley said she is happy, not just for herself, but for the possibility that this burst of national attention might bring resources to the community, which is in great need.

"I'm happy and nervous at the same time," she said. But mostly I'm hopeful, because I know what this could do to help our people and our communities."

She said CNN had been in contact with her for nearly a year. The vetting process for becoming a candidate for this title is very rigorous, and she's glad to be recognized for her work.

"I'm overwhelmed with gratitude; this has been a journey for me," she said.

CNN had written a story about Hawley earlier this year, but almost immediately after that a series of events, including a serious car breakdown and the closure of a building her organization used, set back her efforts significantly.

The warehouse she used to store the food her organization distributes, a building owned by the tribe and used by its commodities program, was found to have black mold and electrical problems, forcing them to vacate and leaving them without a place to store food. That same day, Hawley said, the retired police vehicle the tribe donated to her organization, which she uses to distribute food throughout the community, also broke down.

"Everything that could go wrong, did go wrong," she said in an interview at the time.

Today, Hawley said, the national attention she gained caused a significant burst of donations, to help her get her organization back on its feet, but they still don't have enough for a new facility, which is the biggest immediate need for them, especially with winter on the way.

She said this building could become a regional food distribution center that helps feed people not just in Fort Belknap, but throughout the region.

She said so many people in the region live in a food desert, an area where getting the variety of food necessary for a balanced diet is prohibitively difficult, and she wants to help fix that.

Hawley said she also has a message she wants to send to the people of her community; that their youth are the key to solving so many of the problems their community faces, and they need to be given the chance to prove it.

"I want our youth to know that anything is possible and that they can do anything," she said.

Hawley told Havre Daily in September that the nonprofit Day Eagle Hope Project provides services for cancer patients and survivors in Fort Belknap and provides food to people in need in the area.

A press release said Hawley received her breast cancer diagnosis at age 46, and the life-saving treatment she needed several times a month was at a hospital a three-hour drive away. Hawley, a member of the Gros Ventre tribe, has two master's degrees, yet the challenges she had to navigate to receive the care she needed were daunting. As a single mother, Hawley ultimately took leave without pay to complete her treatment. After her experience, Hawley founded the Day Eagle Hope Project in 2017, and her nonprofit has since expanded to address many other needs of Native Americans in her community.

"As American Indian people, we represent the highest (rates) of everything - diabetes, heart disease, cancer - and we receive the poorest health care. Inadequate access to health care and remote areas of living make it very difficult to be treated and diagnosed in a timely manner," Hawley said in the release.

She told Havre Daily in September that Day Eagle Hope Project has expanded to all kinds of cancer, providing education, patient navigation and culturally sensitive support for patients on the reservation.

Hawley said elders, especially men, have a lot of trouble asking for things, and she wants to be a bridge for them.

One of the most vital services they provide is food, having distributed thousands of meals throughout the area since the pandemic began in 2020.

She said her organization coordinates closely with the Fort Belknap Commodity Program, which has been able to help store some of their food, along with the tribe's forestry service, which lent some vehicles to their most recent distribution.

Many people they serve are raising families and need a lot of support, Hawley said.

Fort Belknap is an area where people have to travel a significant distance to find places that can provide all of their nutritional needs, and that makes supporting families a more difficult task.

She said she's met grandparents who are trying to support as many as 12 children, which would be a monumental task at the best of times, and these are not the best of times.

Hawley said she coordinates with the tribe, and while they do lend support to her program, they are stretched thin.

She said she's told the tribe how essential these services are and how desperately they are needed only to be told that the funding just isn't there.

She added that the tribal representatives are right. Fort Belknap Indian Community just doesn't have the resources to address all of the essential issues in the area and are often given the impossible task of deciding what gets priority, a position she doesn't envy.

Hawley said she hopes her dreams of creating a food bank that can help the entire region come true, but right now they can't even cover all the needs of Fort Belknap.

She said so many large corporations are making tremendous profits while communities like hers feel like third-world countries sometimes.

People shouldn't be going hungry in modern-day America, she said, but so many of them are and these corporations aren't sharing their vast profits.

"We shouldn't be living like this," she said.

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Havre Daily News managing editor Tim Leeds contributed to this report.