TOWER - Ham was the hook, and protection and connection were the goals as the Bois Forte tribal government sponsored several giveaways this past week while also collecting information for a tribal emergency notification system.
The band received a donation of 5,000 pounds of ham from the Mille Lacs Band, left over from their own giveaway, and Bois Forte staff and volunteers have been busy distributing the windfall to band members.
Hams were passed out in Nett Lake, Vermilion, and Indian Point last week, according to Robbie Goggleye, who is involved with the tribe’s emergency operations center, through both drive-up and door-to-door delivery, but about 250 hams remained.
On Tuesday morning Willie King, who works as a maintenance technician for the Nett Lake tribal government offices and also is on the fire department, was in the parking lot of the Y Store passing out hams to band members.
“We came out today to hand them out to the residents who couldn’t get to us,” King said. “It’s something new due to the virus. We’re looking into getting our community members more food and do anything we can to help them out.”
Additional distribution points were operating Tuesday in Orr and Mt. Iron.
While all band members were eligible for the giveaway, King said one group in particular was important to reach.
“Our greatest concern is for our elders,” he said. “They’re the ones most susceptible to the virus. We like to try to take care of our elders. We care for each other and lend a hand when we can.”
Along with hams, King was also handing out handmade masks.
“We’ve had a thousand masks donated from our community members who have been making them for us,” King said.
The tribe had implemented a “red zone” restriction to protect against the virus being brought into reservation areas. People living inside the red zone were asked to quarantine themselves for 14 days if they traveled outside of that boundary, and people coming into the red zone from outside were also asked to self-quarantine. That restriction was lifted last Friday, King said, but handing out masks is one way to encourage people to continue to practice social distancing and remain vigilant.
“There’s always a worry,” he said. “Fishing opening, netting opening, there’s a lot of worry about that part, people coming from out of state.”
In addition to the masks made by community members and distributed to individuals and homes, Goggleye said they had just received an order of 7,000 N95 face masks.
“We’ll take a look at where they’re needed and determine where they’ll be distributed,” he said. “Some for sure will go to the fire and ambulance departments.”
King also was passing out forms for people to provide contact information for a new emergency alert system the band is implementing for all members, no matter where they live.
“It’s an instant notification that can come across as a text message, voice mail, or email,” emergency director Nikki Irving said. “Our employees have been using it for four or five months. We just wanted to get it out to the community members so we can get notifications out as soon as possible rather than mailing something.”
Goggleye said that the tribe is working on bringing in an additional couple of truckloads of food to distribute and commended the work of all of those involved in this first distribution.
“It’s gone really well,” he said. “The people that have been willing to step up, we’re so grateful for their help. All the people that have received a ham so far have been very appreciative and grateful we were able to do that.”