Local teacher fundraises for South Dakota reservation

HAYS COUNTY — For more than 20 years, Jason Poer, a special education teacher at Simon Middle School in Kyle, has been collecting donations and transporting them to the Rosebud Reservation in South Dakota, which holds a special place in his heart.

In 2002, members of the Native American Church (NAC) began collecting donations from South Texas and sending them to the Rosebud Reservation. Today, Poer is continuing the mission with Chief Marvin Swallow, a Lakota (Sioux) Sicangu, and his wife, Hiroko Matsuda Swallow, from Japan. The mission has been blessed from the beginning with support from Petuja Wakan Chanku Native American Church (NAC) in Colorado, the Tlecuauhtlapcupeuh NAC of the Americas in San Antonio and Poer’s church, Teocali Quetzalcoatl of the Americas.

Poer, along with his companion Emily Chapelle, will be supervising the transportation and delivery of the donations — which is about an 18-hour drive. He is expected to travel to the reservation in mid-December following students and teachers being released for winter break.

The reservation faces many challenges every year and one small donation can make a major difference for an entire family, according to Poer.

“The people on the reservation experience quite a bit of hardships that a lot of people are not aware of. The problems that face society in general are much more accentuated on the reservation ... There's not a lot of businesses and there's a huge amount of unemployment and, of course, without employment, comes other problems. We really just wanted to bring a little cheer to the reservation around this time and for some of the families, the gifts that we bring are the only gifts that the children are going to get for Christmas,” he explained. “They're able to get brand new things that everybody else gets for Christmas or representation of what people would get on Christmas.”

Along with bringing a little holiday cheer, Poer said that the fundraiser also helps contribute donations to the people on the reservation for essentials that they need during frigid winter temperatures.

“We can make sure that people know that they're remembered … We bring toys, warm clothes, art supplies, bicycles, heaters, sleeping bags and blankets — things to keep people warm. It always just touches my heart every year, we unload the truck and people are just so happy. And then, they're literally getting stuff and they're putting it on right away. They're like, ‘Oh man, I really needed a pair of warm boots like this,’ and they're putting the boots on or the warm socks or [they say], ‘My daughter just had a baby. This little heater is going to come in so handy.’ Little things like that really just show that no matter what, I can't forget … A little donation from a lot of people makes a big difference. That's what's really kept me going. We get all these people together that live very comfortable lives here, especially compared to the reservation. We take that, we coordinate it and we set it all up and we go and deliver. The smiles on their faces just melts your heart.”

Poer has a deep connection to the Rosebud Reservation that extends beyond the holiday drive, as he was adopted by them back in 1998 when he was 23 years old, which has more of a symbolic meaning than most people are familiar with.

“For Indigenous relatives, making relations and adopting relatives is a very important thing. For the tribes, all around North America and South America, you're born with the family you're born with. That's what you have, and same as us, you know, we're born with a family. But then, through adoption, we're able to extend our family. It means a lot because we have a choice on who to adopt as we get older,” he said. “It's a whole ceremony where they take you in front of the elders, make relations with the tribe and then you treat them accordingly. So I have a lot of brothers and sisters, uncles and aunties. I treat them the same as I treat my blood aunties, uncles, brothers and sisters. It's a beautiful ceremony just to extend that love to myself and to my family from their families. It's a little bit different than what people think of when they adopt relatives.”

His dad’s side of the family moved to the city of Buda in the 1950s and on his mom’s side of the family, his grandmother — who is Indigenous — was from the Lockhart area. Although he had always grown up in the Buda area, Poer said that his family had a lot of relations with different tribes in Texas and in different parts of the United States.

While Poer had Indigenous connections in his family, his grandmother never talked openly about it until he started attending ceremonies: “She pulled me aside and we had this really beautiful conversation [about] how she wished she had spent more time learning that. It wasn't the way it was, but she was really glad that I was getting back to our roots.”

Poer was, and continues to be, involved in different ceremonial ways of life, including sweat lodges, the NAC and Sun Dance.

“I found myself in what is called a sweat lodge — it's a Native American ceremony — with my soon-to-be brother, Marvin Swallow. It was really powerful [and] I really just had a really strong connection to it. The songs, the prayers that were inside of it, it was just really beautiful,” he recalled. “I grew up a very spiritual and very religious person, but I just found a real beauty in the way in which the ceremony was conducted and the prayers.”

Those who are interested in making a donation can visit the GoFundMe page at bit.ly/46qOPFF. As of Tuesday, Nov. 28, $6,162 has been raised out of the $14,000 goal.