CHAIRPERSON MESSAGE: March 2025
ᎣᏏᏲ ᏂᎦᏛ osiyo nigad! (hello, everyone!)
ᎪᎨᏱ Gogeyi (Spring) is here!
Please join us at our Cherokee Nation Community & Cultural Outreach Annual Meeting and Chief's Picnic on Sunday, April 27 (location to be announced). We are excited to visit with our Principal Chief and other Cherokee Nation representatives. Registration will also be on site to provide photo ID cards for registered citizens. There will be plenty of fellow Cherokees to visit with and crafts for the kids! We hope to see you there!
Make sure to mark your calendars for our CNCV Annual Campout held August 1-3. You can make your reservations now!
We reflect on our gatherings this year and look forward to future activities. We had a memorable and fun February Membership Meeting complete with a presentation on growing Cherokee heirloom seeds and on accessing genealogy to obtain citizenship. I gave out many packets of seeds to interested and future gardeners, we ate delicious food, and we gave away two big donated prizes. Congratulations to the winners!
The Cherokee Nation brought us our third installment of the Language class. We have many pictures to share. It was an impactful experience for all, complete with language and cultural learnings. If you still want to learn the language and have not been able to attend a class, we have current options for you and we will be organizing another class. ALL levels of learners are welcome.
It’s the time of year to get out in the garden and enjoy Spring’s early fruits! On that note,
We are expanding our gardening efforts with our Harvesting our Heritage program and offer helpful information and updates from the garden. I have been growing seeds to share with you all for a few years and am so honored to be featured recently in the Cherokee Phoenix for this. The Community and Cultural Outreach Office has also recently partnered with the Secretary of Natural Resources and at-large organizations like us to share heirloom seeds. As it becomes increasingly difficulty to obtain seeds from the Seed Bank, this provides seeds that we will carefully nurture to get more seeds in your hands next year. If we can find a location for a community garden, we might be able to expand even more!
I share one of my favorite Cherokee stories, “The Origin of the Strawberry", and a recipe for Strawberry Dumplings.
Also in this newsletter, Election season for Cherokee Nation is around the corner. We encourage all citizens to participate in the upcoming June 2025 General Election. You have an important voice that impacts the future of our Nation. However, there are important steps and deadlines to note. CNCV Board Member, Mike Webb shares how he and wife Liz demonstrated the important Cherokee value of ᎦᏚᎩ gadugi by coming together to work as one for the betterment of the CirbySide neighborhood during a recent volunteer cleanup day. CNCV member, Jenny Rooney shares pictures from her visit to New Echota and viewing the Cherokee Phoenix printing press.
The CNCV is finalizing a recipe book as part of a collaborative project with our Sister City, Marble City Activity Organization. We need more recipes from our members. Please share a family recipe for inclusion in the book. We want to showcase a variety from our wonderful Cherokee community! Please send to cncv.communications@gmail.com.
Finally, the CNCV has a resource webpage for you with many informative links for citizenship, language, culture, history, health, education, veterans, and more. Let us know if you'd like to see something specifically there.
We’re looking forward to visiting together at these events throughout the year and enjoying community, culture, history, and language with you!
ᏙᏓᏓᎪᎲᎢ dodadagohvi (‘til we meet again),
-- Sabrina McKinney
