GRAND Magazine - November/December 2008 - (Page 37) Chet Provorse and Wyatt at the Make a Difference Day Martin Luther King, Jr., Painting Project. Nile and a new friend at the Blackfeet Native American Reservation. Nile and Buddy, a friend that he brought back from the Blackfeet Native American Reservation. Global Volunteers, Blackfeet Native American Reservation, Montana For the past three years, Jeanie Hume has brought one or two of her “‘tween-aged” grandchildren with her on an annual trek from her home in Des Moines, Iowa, to the Blackfeet Native American Reservation in northwest Montana. “I am 66, and I wanted to take them when I was young enough to keep up with them,” she says. Before they leave, Hume tells each grandchild, “This is your experience, not mine. So you choose what you want to do, what you can contribute. The experience is up to you.” For Hume, who grew up on the Flathead Reservation, also in west Montana, the volunteer trips are a way to see the land—and her childhood hometown. “I want my grandchildren to experience the Native American culture,” she says, “and I want them to understand that some people don’t have everything.” On the reservation, while painting classrooms, delivering meals and sitting around the campfire to learn about how Native American communities handle issues like poverty and alcoholism, Hume’s grandchildren “really gained an appreciation both for what the Blackfeet kids don’t have—as well as some of the positive, cultural things they do have because of where they are and who they are.” Sophia demonstrating how to play with a hoop and stick at Colonial Williamsburg. 18th-century style: Colonial Williamsburg, Williamsburg, Virginia Long-time Colonial Williamsburg volunteer Alicia Diehl was thrilled when her granddaughter, Sophia, 10, joined the Junior Interpreter program in 2008. While Diehl answered guests’ questions at the visitor’s center and led tours at the DeWitt Wallace Decorative Arts Museum and Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Book Arts Museum, Sophia learned how to greet people with a curtsy and how to speak in 18th-century English. NOVEMBER DECEMBER 2008 GRAND 37
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