WSNARC Meet and Greet

The Learning Council hosted the Western Slope Native American Resource Center (WSNARC) at the Hearth on Thursday, November 21, 2024 for an open house meet and greet with a potent conversation about colonialism, traditional ways and the impactful work of WSNARC.

WSNARC Executive Director Monique Terpstra attended the event with staff members Vee Gallegos, who gave a powerful presentation that included the myth of Thanksgiving, Herberta Silas and her mother Jeannie Watts Elder from the Ute Mountain Ute Tribe in Towoac, CO. Jeannie provides translation for WSNARC to the traditional Ute Language. She told stories about her grandmother and the traditional uses of many herbs and shared about the traditional ways of life and death for the Ute People.

WSNARC uplifts Ute culture and provides services to Native People from many tribes on the Western Slope to the Four Corners. They introduced their Well-briety program, which aims to provide Native people with culturally-based healing from the effects of historical trauma that can show up as alcoholism and other issues that have affected many native communities. They also confirmed that the Powwow’s they started this year in Grand Junction and Montrose will continue in 2025.

WSNARC board Members Jose Luis Chavez, Shawn Davis and Alicia Michelsen were also in attendance and participated in a WSNARC Board Meeting at the Hearth following the Meet and Greet.

We are thankful to the many community members who came to meet the WSNARC team, as well as the TLC Kitchen team and local farms for providing and preparing a beautiful feast of Native American inspired dishes including nixtamalized corn cakes with corn from Groundwork, not-fry bread with locally sourced wheat and natural levain, Squash Soup with sweet squash from Horton Nash, Horseradish Cream with horseradish from Thistle Whistle, and many other delightful flavors of the season. We are especially thankful for the WSNARC team making the journey from Grand Junction to Paonia to share their work and stories with us.