Railbelt Mental Health & Addictions

Nenana Wellness Coalition
Minutes
July 25, 2006

The Nenana Wellness Coalition is an alliance of representatives from various organizations, government agencies, community groups and individuals that meets weekly to discuss, evaluate, coordinate, consolidate and help implement plans for improving the wellness and quality of life in Nenana Alaska.

There were ten in attendance for the meeting today including: Kat and Leon McElroy, Laura Vance, Bonnie Reed, Tim Horn, Donald Charlie, Rob and Susan Thomason, Miles Martin, and Paul Verhagen.

The meeting was called to order at twelve ten P.M.

WELCOME by this weeks chairperson, Paul Verhagen, who also read our Mission Statement.

PRAYER was lead by Paul, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

PRESENTATION OF AGENDA AND CALL FOR MODIFICATIONS: Kat passed out agendas; there was one call for modifications: Miles requested an update on the Art Train project.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: Kat forwarded minutes previously to the WIN e-mail list for the 7/18/06 meeting. Neither corrections nor addendums were noted.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: No Guests today.

We had pasta fresh green salad with smoked halibut for lunch, provided by Railbelt Mental Health & Addictions. Bonnie Reed brought home-made brownies.

SPEAKERS/TOPICS
Neighborhood Watch Community Dinner is scheduled for one week from today, Tuesday, August first. Rita Pierce made flyers which Laura printed out. Miles has volunteered to distribute the flyers around town. Paul took one to post at the courthouse. The representatives from the Anchorage Police Department will do a presentation at WIN meeting that day. Then Miles is scheduled to take them for a sight-seeing river trip. Paul offered to help defray gas expenses for this. Then there will be a community-wide presentation that night. The dinner is a cover-dish pot luck. Discussion ensued regarding foodstuffs. Kat will make fry bread. Miles offered to donate moose for soup. He suggested asking Moses Paul for fish out of the community fish-wheel. Donald Charlie said he thought the community fish-wheel is kaput and that Moses Paul was taking fish with his net. Tim said the Baha’i community would donate Country Time juice mix. Per Laura, Railbelt has coolers to mix same. Bonnie said she would bring some manner of dessert. Kat will contact Robin at the Nenana Native Council to check on use of the hall and provisioning for paper plates, etc.

Art Train Miles Martin reported that he continues participating in teleconferences with the organizers of the Art Train which is scheduling a stop in Nenana come October. He says he has reviewed their handbook which is extensive and tentatively identified various local resources to address various tasks. He is acting as general chairperson for the project while WIN is acting as the steering committee. Alex Ketzler would be a good facilities chair-person as he is most familiar with the Cultural Center which is the area where the Art Train anticipates stopping for several days. Miles also suggested Diane Jensen to be in charge of press releases and other PR. The Art Train organizational manual suggests a tour guide chair for which Miles suggested Annette McDonald. They want to know if we are going to have a reception. Discussion ensued regarding possible venues for this. Consensus opinion seemed to be the Tribal Hall. They want someone to organize bringing students from the schools in Anderson, Healy and Cantwell to Nenana during the Art Train. Miles says there may be up to $300.00 mini-grant money available for transportation costs. He wonders if the Nenana Inter-tribal dance and drum group would be available to perform. We need to contact Christina Sunnyboy about this. Lastly, we talked about someone to organize the dinner. Rob said he would talk to Mike Anderson about this. Donald Charlie mentioned that Robin Campbell has access to GA workers who may be willing to help with cooking and setup/clean-up for the dinner. Miles will email the notes so Kat can forwarded them to the WIN list.

UPDATES/ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Rob stated that representatives from Senator Don Young’s office including Pamela Day will be in Nenana on Saturday. He will be talking to them about the four million dollar mortgage encumbered upon the Nenana Student Living Center, among other things. He said that he has generated a Talking Points bulletin about that debt for Orie Williams to use in Washington DC.

Paul stated that it looks as if Nenana will have a new courthouse. He says the building will be financed by Jack Coghill and leased to the City with an option to buy. The District Court has expressed interest in leasing space, as have the Troopers. Chief Justice Fabe was impressed on her tour of Nenana last week. We discussed other ways the building could be used. We all agreed having a bank again in town would be nice. Paul said that letters to Denali State Bank voicing this desire could be helpful.

Donald Charlie reported they had a good FYI meeting Aug 20 at 1 PM with LEAP program people and community key members including the magistrate, Railbelt staff, the State Troopers, the Tribal Administrator and TFYS worker. This is towards their goal of creating a community response plan and program around the issue of domestic violence. He has identified a training that would be good, a one day meeting in Mystic Lake, Minnesota on September 19. He is looking for funding so he, the Tribal Administrator and TFYS worker can go. The purpose of the training is for Native people from all over the nation to come together to discuss how best Indian Health money should be spent to address the issue of Domestic Violence.
He also reported that the Sobriety Potlatch at Old Minto went well. There were fewer people in attendance than usual due to the death of an Elder in Minto the night before, maybe 75 to 100 people attended.
Lastly he reported that the NNC is looking for funding to build a four-plex and a stand alone clinic.

Laura reported that Railbelt is in the process of opening their Anderson office. Their new Rural Human Services worker will be staffing it. Railbelt also hired a new mental Health clinician for the Healy office. Her name is Diana Grumm. She just graduated from her Master’s program and completed an internship in Appalachia. She is due to arrive in Alaska in early September.

ADJOURNMENT approximately 1:30 PM

Nenana Wellness Coalition
Minutes
July 18, 2006

The Nenana Wellness Coalition is an alliance of representatives from various organizations, government agencies, community groups and individuals that meets weekly to discuss, evaluate, coordinate, consolidate and help implement plans for improving the wellness and quality of life in Nenana Alaska.

There were fourteen in attendance for the meeting today including: Kat and Leon McElroy, Maryellen Kanayurak, Jeri Lucier, Rick Martin, Bonnie Reed, Tim Horn, Donald Charlie, Rob and Susan Thomason, Rosemary Allen, Miles Martin, Donna Schneider and Traci Wiggins.

The meeting was called to order at noon-fifteen.

WELCOME by this weeks chairperson, Tim Horn, who also read our Mission Statement.

PRAYER was lead by Rick Martin, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance.

PRESENTATION OF AGENDA AND CALL FOR MODIFICATIONS: Traci passed out agendas; there was no call for modifications.

APPROVAL OF MINUTES: There were no minutes from 07/11/06 because there was no actual WIN meeting that day due to the brouhaha over the Extreme Makeover film crews being in town.

INTRODUCTION OF GUESTS: Rosemary introduced the new Rural Human Services worker from Railbelt Mental Health & Addictions, Maryellen Kanayurak. She will be based out of Anderson, with an office in the city building there. Traci introduced Ms. Jeri Lucier who is working for RMHA in a 2 month job sampling partnership with Voc/Rehab. Jeri will be based out of the Healy office. Both Maryellen and Jeri are interested in having wellness coalitions in their respective communities.

We had pasta casserole with meatballs and fresh broccoli for lunch, provided by Railbelt Mental Health & Addictions.

SPEAKERS/TOPICS
Art Train Miles Martin reported that he and Alex Ketzler sat in on a teleconference regarding the proposed Art Train stop in Nenana come October. He says he will need help in organizing this event but that it looks as if it is a “Go.” Art Train organizers have been successful in obtaining about 75% of their needed funding for the Alaska trek. They are looking for local Native artists both to show their work. Miles will make a letter of community support for us to sign. Discussion ensued regarding ways to facilitate getting students from the schools in Anderson, Healy and Cantwell to come to Nenana during the Art Train.

Old Minto Potlatch—Donald Charlie said that this potlatch has been happening for at least a decade. It is a celebration of sobriety. The clients at the camp do most of the work preparing and serving the food. He noted that cohorts that complete treatment during the timeframe of the potlatch have higher success rates in sobriety than the other cohorts. Transportation will be provided and the event is open to anyone who wishes to attend. Boats will be available, loading behind the Nenana Cultural Center, and anyone needing transportation is encouraged to call 1-800-478-6822, ex 3144 or ex 3158 to make arrangements with Old Minto Camp staff at TCC. Kat will be going on the first boat Friday morning to help make fry bread for which Traci has donated dried blueberries.

Dancing In The Streets—Traci Wiggins said that the date set for our second annual Recovery Month celebration will be Friday, September 15, 2006. After much thought, she thinks we should NOT attempt to combine Dancing in the Streets with the annual WIN Wellness Dinner as it makes for too crowded an agenda. She feels that the WIN dinner ought be held on Veteran’s Day as we have previously as that seemed to work out well. Traci will arrange for proclamations from the city, the Native Council, and our surrounding communities. The state DBH office will get a state proclamation from the governor. She will also be in charge of radio announcements, press releases and inviting various dignitaries. Laura will be in charge of arrangements for the dance. Joe Feller has said that he will be available to play music for the dance if we would like. We had discussions about various possible venues. Jeri offered to see if the military would be willing to donate the use of and set-up one of their huge army tents and heaters. Laura will look into getting use of the community center. It was agreed that we would want use of it for 3 days, so that we could set-up and clean-up at leisure. Possibly the Native Council would agree to having GA workers help with set-up/clean-up. Rob agreed to contact Mike Anderson to spearhead the dinner. Mike will be point person, will set the menu and prepare the foods. RMHA will help with the costs of the food. Last year, NSLC students did much of the actual cooking which worked out really well. Maryellen agreed to be point person for the parade. She will contact Karen Lord who was the primary parade organizer last year. We brainstormed various potential participants in the parade including the marching band, Tae Kwan Do, the Shriners, Veteran’s, the library, city fire fighters and students.

UPDATES/ANNOUNCEMENTS:
Rob stated that there is a chance that the YERC will not be completed in time for the start of school although work continues per schedule. Alternative arrangements are in place in that contingency for K-2 students and Headstart. Earl Polk and family will be arriving Aug 2nd at NSLC. Earl is actively recruiting male students for the start of school. NSLC is re-licensed through 2008. He said that the number of repeat students continues to increase as well as the number of siblings and cousins who enroll due to favorable word-of-mouth reports. He reported on the invasion of Nenana by the Extreme Makeover/Home Edition crew. They contacted Nenana School because they wanted to get “local Color” coverage for the episode they filmed in the North Pole area. They will also go to the village of Minto. He said that our students conducted themselves well despite the long wait engendered by the construction/traffic delays. Each student received a school backpack filled with school supplies. The film crew interviewed Gramma Edna extensively.

Jeri said that the Healy Lions are sponsoring a dance in September. They continue doing free vision screenings. They had a fabulous bar-b-que picnic and a band with live music to celebrate the 4th of July. They are building a pavilion at Otto Lake in Healy.

Bonnie Reed announced that the Seniors will be taking a railroad trip into Denali in August and have scheduled a picnic in Fairbanks for July 28th.

Miles reported that the Chamber of Commerce has had no meetings for the past two months, they are on their typical “summer schedule.” He reported that The Friends of The Library are seeking to obtain 501 (3) C non-profit status so as to be able to apply independently for grants for the library. He stated that they are still looking for volunteers at the Cultural Center.

Rosemary reported that the Ice classic is closed for the summer.

Donald Charlie reiterated that there will be a Leap meeting Aug 20 at 1 PM.

Traci announced that she, Laura and Rosemary just returned from a tobacco conference in Washington DC. “It was hot!” she said. They came back with lots of new information about cancer and lots of anti-tobacco literature.

ADJOURNMENT approximately 2:00 PM