"No photos or video of sweet suffering faces. No popular vacation landscape for a backdrop. No personal connective ties. Are those the reasons the natural disaster in the Great Plains has gone below our philanthropy radar? How many of us knew anything about the massive winter storms that have left the Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation without power or water or heat for nearly two weeks? (Yes, I know many reading this are on the East Coast, like me, nervously wondering if today's latest blizzard will knock out our power. But we have resources that tribal people with 80% unemployment in the remote plains simply don't.) USA TODAY carried a story nine days ago but, like most media focused on millions suffering in Haiti, we didn't keep an eye on Native American who are still as freezing, isolated, and miserably unsafe now as then. Outraged Keith Olbermann is now raising funds at MSNBC for the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe Storm Relief - Emergency Assistance Fund." Get the Story:
Faith and Reason: Storm disaster for Sioux flies under compassion radar (USA Today 2/10) Also Today:
Relief fund for S.D. tribe grows quickly (AP 2/11)
Weary reservations get some disaster relief; more storms forecast (Episcopal News Service] 2/10) Related Stories:
Opinion: Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe still needs help (2/10)
SCIA 'negligent' for South Dakota tribes hit by storms (2/9)
San Manuel Band creates fund for tribes hit by storms (02/03)
Ho-Chunk Nation helps out Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe (02/03)
Power returning to Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation (2/1)
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe struggles after big storm (1/28)
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe out of water after storm (1/27)
Cheyenne River Sioux Reservation battered by storm (1/26)