Wotakuye Mutual Aid
Rapid City, SD
A grassroots response to COVID-19 in Rapid City, SD focusing on food sovereignty, Mutual aid, community, and Lakota society. Formerly known as Meals for Relatives.
Grantee Since
2021
Key Issues
- Food Justice
- Indigenous Justice
In 2021, Rapid Response Fund grantee Wotakuye Mutual Aid built out mutual aid infrastructure, community disaster resilience, and food sovereignty and security, providing food and other essential supplies to indigenous members in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Led by Cheyenne River, Rosebud, and Oglala women working in South Dakota, Wokatuye started out as a project of the HeSapa Voter Initiative to encourage Indigenous people to be civically engaged in elections.
This effort has grown into a mutual aid model to address dire needs in their communities during the COVID-19 crisis. Funds will build on their organizing work and rapid response infrastructure to address the hunger, housing, and health disparities in indigenous urban areas and throughout the homelands of the Oceti Sakowin indigenous peoples.