News Release

Pipestone National Monument Receives National Park Foundation Grant to Connect Indigenous Youth with Quarries

News Release Date: August 29, 2023

Contact: Natalie Barber, 507-825-5464

Pipestone National Monument is honored to have received the National Park Foundation’s Open Outdoors for Kids Grant for 2024! This grant will fund field trips to the park from under-resourced communities, with a special focus on re-connecting Indigenous youth to their ancestral land. 

This is the fourth year that Pipestone has received funding support from the National Park Foundation. The program started as a pilot with Flandreau Public Schools and has grown to a region-wide opportunity that welcomes several groups each year, some traveling hundreds of miles. In the past, the park has used this grant to reimburse the transportation costs that can prevent under-resourced communities from experiencing Pipestone.  

Grant funds have also been used to help connect Indigenous youth with Elders and cultural educators for culturally relevant activities, providing supplies, travel reimbursement, logistical support, and lunches. Some of the most memorable experiences for the youth are quarrying and carving with Cindy Pederson, Mark Pederson, and others in the Pipestone Dakota Community.   

Through this generous grant support, the Monument has hosted youth from several Tribes across 6 states.  Most recently, a group of Otoe students traveled all the way from Oklahoma in a visit organized by their Tribal Historic Preservation Office.   

Monument staff are excited to continue building strong relationships with groups already familiar with the grant and to establish new connections. If you or someone you know are educators or group leaders who are eligible and interested, please reach out at [phone] ext. 214.       

More information about Pipestone National Monument can be found at www.nps.gov/pipe