Sac & Fox Nation of Oklahoma Receives $39930 Award from The Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums

Sac & Fox Nation of Oklahoma Receives $39930 Award from The Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums


Stroud, OK – Sac & Fox Nation of Oklahoma received a $39930 grant through the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums (ATALM) American Rescue Plan: Humanities Grants for Native Institutions. This grant opportunity is intended to help Native Cultural Institutions to recover from the COVID-19 pandemic and provide humanities programming to their communities. Funds were provided by the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) as part of the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 passed by the U.S. Congress.

Funds support the Thaki Resurgence: Promoting Sac & Fox Culture Project that will produce four humanities programs, including the “Our Languages Festival” to promote language and cultural awareness.

Thaki Resurgence is a series of 4 events that will coincide with the seasons. Like growth and newness, planning for our 3 major events will occur in the spring. Summertime is marked by our annual pow wow. In the summer we will post tutorials of our traditional dances. In the fall, we will host our annual Our Languages Festival to promote language and cultural awareness. Culturally, we tell stories during winter. We will host a premiere of oral histories that we have produced throughout the year.

 “We are all affected by what happened during this pandemic. We have lost of a lot of people that are important to us. We have lost singers, speakers, elders, teachers,” said Sac and Fox Business Committee Member and Clan Leader, Robert Williamson. “And we will still feel the effects of losing our loved ones for a long time to come. These events will help our people to reunite and to begin learning, teaching and taking part in our cultural practices again. We are thankful to the ATALM American Rescue Plan for providing us the funding to host these events that will help us keep our culture and language strong.”

“COVID-19 hit Tribal communities particularly hard. The pandemic is not only responsible for the loss of culture keepers, Native language speakers, elders, and government leaders, but also the closure of cultural institutions, furloughed staff, and reduced programming,” said ATALM President Susan Feller. “This opportunity will provide much-needed financial support and create humanities-based programs that bring cultural practitioners and the public together in a dialogue that embraces the civic and cultural life of Native communities.”

Sac & Fox Nation of Oklahoma was selected by an independent Peer Review Committee and is one out of 84 awardees to receive funding. Other awardees representing 25 states include Tribal governments and Native nonprofit organizations, as well as higher education institutions and non-native nonprofit organizations working in partnership with state or federally recognized tribal entities. A total of $3.26 million was granted. A list of grantees is available at www.atalm.org

“The National Endowment for the Humanities is grateful to the Association of Tribal Archives, Libraries, and Museums for the association’s important work in administering American Rescue Plan funding to help Native American cultural institutions recover from the pandemic,” said NEH Chair Shelly C. Lowe (Navajo). “These grants provide valuable humanities resources to tribal communities and represent a lifeline to the many Native heritage sites and cultural centers that are helping preserve and educate about Indigenous history, traditions, and languages.”