FRONTLINE RESPONSE AND BASIC SERVICES

Piikani Lodge plays a vital role in improving health outcomes and investing in solutions that go ‘beyond the walls’ to reduce chronic disease and hopelessness while providing opportunity and growth for a region that is currently lacking critical services and infrastructure.

PLHI charged into the midst of an ongoing community crisis as precious elders, adults, and youth lost their lives to COVID, children and families were quarantined in already overcrowded conditions, and social, recreational, and economic opportunities were significantly reduced.

Organizations like PLHI are critically needed “anchor organizations” not only in times of global pandemic, but to strengthen and build America’s rural foundation, its food and income stability. In the first nine months of COVID, PLHI staff:

Traveled well over 27,000 miles to deliver more than 40,000 hot meals prepared by Blackfeet Tribal Eagle Shields Senior Center to elders and partnered with FAST Blackfeet to deliver 13,000 food boxes to families in need. Mapped routes to collect data on vulnerable persons living remotely who were unable to access community resources. Distributed CDC-approved information, personal protective equipment, toys, bikes, games and sweetgrass braids to residents throughout the Blackfeet Nation. Assisted 109 agriculture producers, economic pillars of the community, with applications for emergency grants and loans. The program helped attain 120 grants and loans totaling $1,594,277 for our community members.

The success of this campaign led to PLHI being awarded a cooperative agreement through the USDA Farm Service Agency to lead yet another campaign that would extend outreach and assistance to producers interested in applying for grants and loans.