LAGUNA, NEW MEXICO – The Laguna Pueblo tribe always combines entertainment with tribal welfare. Today, Indigenous Peoples Day, was celebrated with dances, arts and crafts, free food, and booths maintained by Laguna Pueblo entities that serve the tribe’s welfare.
The day began with a Fun/Run Walk in the baseball field area and sponsored by Laguna Housing Development Management Enterprises. LHDME was accepting applications for their new apartments located behind the old Laguna- Acoma Jr./Sr. High School. It is reported that of the 20 family apartments 13 have been rented.
Early attendees joined Governor Herrera in an opening prayer followed by his remarks. Drums and dancing accompanied events throughout the day.
For the balance of the day fair attendees shopped at arts and crafts booths, were treated to a free grilled lunch, and acquired helpful information from tribal entities that had their own booths.
The Department of Veterans Association was represented, and their interest was in educating and helping veterans acquire necessary safety improvements for their homes. They can apply for a $120,000 grant to help with their needs.
The Pueblo of Laguna
Public Health Nursing Pro- gram had a booth to educate the community about their public health nursing program and their home visits. Information was also given to tribal members, and anyone else with questions, about medication management, wound monitoring, chronic disease care management, patient and community education, hospital discharge coordination, school health, case management, transportation coordination, and immunizations.
Waverly Home Health Care for Miners had a booth. Their programs are available to all miners. The representative mentioned that the recently passed RECA (Radiation Exposure Compensation Act) bill has caused some problems for the miners and the entities trying to serve them, to the extent that some community groups have gone to Washington, DC to protest.
This entity is available to all miners regardless of where they live, and there have been many from the surrounding villages, Seboyeta, Paguate, and the Grants area.
Laguna Public Library was present to announce that they have reopened after a period of waiting for a water pipe issue to be resolved. They have weekday hours, including most Saturdays. The booth also shared coloring books, crayons, and bookmarks for the kids to encourage them to read more.
The Benefit Services program, open to everyone, had helpful information at their booth. They are available to help people with state benefits like TNF, SNAP, Medicaid, their Social Security benefits, their veteran's survivors and retirement benefits, and other services. This entity is located in the Service Center across from the new post office at the corner of Rio San Jose Dr. and Marmon Rd. and can be contacted around the clock in the case of an emergency. For normal business questions after hours, you may leave a message. They are always available to help the public.
AMERIND was also present. This is a 100% Native American-owned insurance company. Today they were helping with information about Home Maintenance for the upcoming Fall season, space heater safety, and how to use a fire extinguisher.
Pueblo of Laguna Human Resources had a booth to help people with their tribal job applications. Anyone who has graduated can put in an application for any of the positions that they have open. They have multiple departments that they hire for, so whatever you're looking for, they probably have it. This appears to be a good opportunity for high school graduates.
Cibola General Hospital was also present, as was the Laguna Rainbow Center, the Elderly Center, Kawaika Senior Center, and Laguna Behavioral Health Services.
Other booths were occupied by vendors selling their unique arts and crafts, and even some baked goods. It’s the season for pumpkins and there were pumpkin cookies and pumpkin bread loaves. A new bakery, Kay ‘n Kaye’s Bakery was greeting the season with pumpkin goodies and hair bows.
One of those potters, who also makes jewelry is Shane Coop and his wife Michele Estevan of Acoma. His unique style of pottery is to decorate with horsehair and seal with terra sigillata, the name for the method used to seal the pottery. One example of this technique is a pumpkin- colored hot air balloon embedded with an amethyst.
Tony Ose, an artist of elegant deer, finely painted and framed was showing his work. Attending the arts and crafts shows that highlight the fall and winter seasons gives all a chance to see the direction of new ideas and how creativity surrounds us.