SMSC Supports Cheyenne River Elderly Village

Elderly Village will be one of the first state-licensed, federally certified ….. 

It will provide about 60 jobs for local residents. Scheduled to open in July 2006, the facility will contain 60 beds:

50 skilled nursing beds and 10 assisted living beds. The 50,000 square foot facility will be open to both Indian and

non-Indian patients. Currently elders live as far as 175 miles away from the reservation because of the lack of

available nursing home beds. Groundbreaking for the facility was held on June 29, 2005.

“There is urgency in bringing our elders home to the Reservation. Not only is this where they want to be, but

they will also bring with them a culture that is being lost. Having our elders close to us will allow them to teach

us…the language, our history, a forgotten value system. It will also show them that they have not been abandoned.

Our elders need to come home because we need to save the culture, and because we need to rejuvenate their minds

and spirits. Having a nursing facility close to home will accomplish that,” wrote the Tribal Government in their

grant proposal.

A member of Oceti Sakowin, The Seven Council Fires of the Dakota/Lakota/Nakota Nation, the Cheyenne

River Sioux Tribe has a large membership spread over a large land base. A population of 13,270 Tribal members

lives on a land base of 2.8 million acres (1.4 million in trust) in north central South Dakota with an unemployment

rate of approximately 78%.

Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community Chairman Stanley Crooks said, “We are happy to be able to assist

the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe’s efforts to keep their elderly at home on the reservation. We know that it is the

wisdom of the elders that keeps a people strong. We think this will be a good project which will support and

encourage their cultural ways as well as help provide good jobs for their Tribal members.”

“With the efforts of the Shakopee Tribe we are able to accomplish the development of the Elderly Village,”

said CRST Chairman Harold Frazier at the groundbreaking ceremony.

The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community has funded a number of programs on the Cheyenne River

Reservation over the past few years including $1 million for construction of a new Bingo Hall, $250,000 for a

youth center, $50,000 for a diabetes clinic, $6,000 for a suicide prevention program, and $27,200 for hay for

buffalo and wild horses. The SMSC has also donated to several Pow Wows on the reservation.

Already in 2005 the SMSC made a $17 million loan to the Sisseton-Wahpeton Oyate of South Dakota, for

construction of a new casino hotel at Watertown, South Dakota, to replace the existing Dakota Sioux Casino. Also

in 2005 the SMSC made a $38 million loan to the Oglala Sioux Tribe of South Dakota for debt consolidation and

an expansion of the Tribe’s Prairie Wind Casino and Hotel. In the past the SMSC has made economic

development loans to the Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe for $41 million (2003); the Upper Sioux Tribe for $21

million (2001); and the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe for $2.8 million (1996).

Over the past several years the SMSC has donated more than $56.5 million to charitable organizations and

Indian Tribes. The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community, a federally recognized Indian Tribe in Minnesota,

is the owner and operator of Mystic Lake Casino Hotel, Little Six Casino, Playworks, Dakotah! Sport and Fitness,

and other enterprises on the reservation south of the Twin Cities. The SMSC utilizes its financial resources from

gaming and non-gaming enterprises to pay for all of the internal infrastructure of the Tribe, including but not

limited to housing, roads, water and sewer systems, and essential services to its Tribal members in education,

health, and welfare.

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Stanley R. Crooks