Nett Lake Girls Recognized for Leadership

Four Nett Lake girls were recently recognized for their leadership skills by the Minnesota Indigenous Youth Freedom Project sponsored by the University of Duluth (UMD). Tyla Adams, Adrianna Day, Kenda Benner, and Larissa Drift were honored at a banquet held at the Inn on Lake Superior – Duluth this past weekend for their participation in this program. The program was focused on leadership skill building, community awareness, public speaking, with a main goal of completing a community project. These girls were very dedicated to their project of making a “memorial quilt” for the community of Nett Lake for those loved ones that passed on to the spirit world. They organized a community spaghetti feed and provided cloth squares to the community members that were in attendance to write a special message for their loved ones in remembrance of them. The quilt turned out to be a beautiful quilt with vibrant colors in a pattern of diamonds. The quilt will be presented to the Bois Forte Tribal Council to be displayed at the Tribal Office headquarters in Nett Lake.

Each of the 11 Reservations in Minnesota were represented and each group had their own special community projects that were presented at the banquet. These projects ranged from the youths from Grand Portage presenting their project on Maple Sugar (Sugar Bush), Red Lake youths presented their project on drug awareness, the other projects included: a basketball tournament, a wall mural, and other community related projects.

Each group had a parent mentor, and the Nett Lake girls were honored to have Dawn Benner serve as their mentor. Dawn indicated that the girls had fun and thought of the idea of a memorial quilt all on their own. They did all of the coordinating, cooking, and sewing by themselves. They met weekly and worked very hard to complete this project that they are very proud of. The community of Nett Lake will be much honored to accept this quilt and will display it proudly at the Tribal Headquarters. The parents of these girls are very proud of these girls and their accomplishments and look forward to them as future leaders of the Bois Forte Reservation.