This page sponsored in part by:

http://hannahshelpinghands.org

Hannah's Helping Hands, Inc. — Our Mission
We are a non-profit 501(c)3 organization providing financial assistance to families with children battling cancer. Many families need help with the most basic needs for their families during this fight for their child’s life. Some must leave work for months and even years to care for their sick child and the financial loss can be devastating. Our goal is to help as many families being treated locally as possible. We help with basic needs such as gas & food cards, groceries, wigs, utility payments, prescriptions, medical co-payments, rent/housing as well as other expenses. Our referrals come from doctors, nurses and staff at a local children’s hospital in Tulsa as well as our local communities.

It is time to START PLANNING your group’s meeting room use for JANUARY-DECEMBER, 2012. (2011 dates already scheduled are not affected by this.) The representatives of the organization booking the room must have library cards with the Tulsa City-County Library and be in good standing.

Bookings for organizations are on a first-come, first-served basis. The Library reserves the right to give scheduling priority to all library events. In order to allow for equitable use of the rooms available, we will schedule a maximum of 12 meetings for any one group. All meetings are open to the public.

Any public announcements or advertisements, citing a library as the meeting place, must be approved in the Executive Offices. No admission charge or service charges may be made for any function held in the library’s meeting rooms. Meetings cannot be used for the purpose of commercial enterprises.

Recitals, social functions or organizations engaged in soliciting business or funds may not be scheduled in the meeting rooms. Political groups may use library meeting rooms to hold meetings. However, political rallies for the purpose of supporting or opposing a specific candidate or issue may not be held in the library.

The meeting room at Collinsville Library accommodates 75.

You will need to stop by the library for a room request form and packet of information.

We are also asking that you read our rules for usage and agree to comply by signing the document. Keep a copy of both sheets for your records and then return the originals to the library by Monday, August 1, 2011, so that library staff can accommodate as many groups as possible. We will accept booking requests after August 2, but August 1 is the day that we will begin assigning spaces.

The meeting rooms in our libraries are used by over 12,000 people each month. We believe that offering meeting space to groups like yours is an important community service provided by the Tulsa City-County Library. Thank you for your support!

Meeting Room Use Request 2012

Tulsa City-County Library

For more information including hours, visit us on the Web at http://www.tulsalibrary.org/collinsville

Tulsa Business Journal -- 06/29/2011

The Cherokee Nation is seeking contenders for the 2011 Little Cherokee Ambassador Competition, to be held on Aug. 13, at Sequoyah Schools’ Place Where They Play. The competition is held in conjunction with the 59th Cherokee National Holiday and several lead ambassadors will be selected to represent Cherokee Nation at upcoming events throughout the year.

The competition relates to the tribe’s initiative to promote Cherokee language and culture and helps the tribe’s youngest citizens develop leadership and confidence said Mandy Scott, Little Cherokee Ambassador event coordinator. Competitors display knowledge of traditional crafts and stories by participating in show and tell, sharing a family or historical story and answering questions about Cherokee language and history.

“The goal is to help build leaders that build our Nation,” said Scott. “Participants are inspired to achieve their dreams and become self-sufficient.”

Contestants must be a Cherokee Nation citizen between 4 and 12 years old by Sept. 30, 2011. Complete applications should be submitted no later than 5 p.m., Friday, July 22 and need to include a copy of the contestant’s tribal citizenship card and a brief biography. Participants will be divided into three age groups, 4 – 6 years, 7 – 9 years and 10 – 12 years, and a male and female lead ambassador will be chosen from each group. Those who have previously been chosen as the lead ambassador for their age groups are not eligible to compete.

For more information or to request an application please contact Mandy Scott at 918-207-3841 or mandyscott@cherokee.org.

This week the White House launched our new website “Winning the Future: President Obama and the Native American Community” to provide Indian Country with another tool to help navigate the federal government and learn about how the President’s Agenda is helping to win the future for Native Americans. Recently featured on the new website is the below copied blog posting by Kimberly Teehee, White House Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs.

Sincerely,
Charles W. Galbraith
The White House

Collaborating with Tribes through the White House Rural Council
Posted by Kimberly Teehee on July 01, 2011 at 11:55 AM EDT

On June 9th, President Obama signed an Executive Order establishing the first White House Rural Council. While rural communities face challenges, they also present economic potential. The Council will address these challenges, build on the Administration’s rural economic strategy, and improve the implementation of that strategy.

The Council, chaired by Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack, was established to focus on policy initiatives for Rural Americans and will coordinate to increase the effectiveness of federal engagement with tribal governments. According to the 2010 U.S. Decennial Census, 42.6 percent of all Native Americans live in rural areas. In addition, some reservations face unemployment rates of up to 80 percent. The Council will work across federal agencies to address these challenges and promote economic prosperity and quality of life in Indian Country and across rural America. The Council will work to break down silos and find areas for better collaboration and improved flexibility in government programs and will work closely with state, local and tribal governments, non-profits, and the private sector to leverage federal support.

Plans are already underway for the Council to address ways to expand access to capital in rural communities, including an examination of the unique challenges facing Indian Country in increasing the flow of credit to Indian reservations. Economic development and job creation in Indian Country—and in all other sectors of the U.S. economy—depend on access to capital. When credit-worthy business owners can easily borrow to finance business start-up and expansion, the economy thrives. One thing we hear from tribal leaders, however, is that borrowing money for business development in Indian Country is difficult. The reasons range from difficulties in using tribal land as collateral, to the small number of lending institutions serving Indian Country, to lenders’ perceptions that lending to tribal members or tribal governments is risky.

Much of tribally-owned and individual Indian-owned land is held in trust by the United States, which essentially means it cannot be sold outside the tribe to cover lender costs should a borrower be unable to repay a loan. While trust status preserves a tribal land base it makes the processes for using land as collateral more complex in Indian Country than it is in non-tribal communities. With relatively few lending institutions serving tribal communities, it is more difficult for lenders and Indian Country borrowers to gain experience with extending and gaining credit. Financing options for tribes and their members then are limited by a lack of financial expertise, credit, and financial resources sufficient to support business dealings – and few supportive mechanisms exist through which they might develop expertise. Moreover, lenders are reluctant to enter into financing agreements with tribes and tribal corporations because of both real and perceived concerns over the status of Indian tribes as governments.

The Council’s efforts will build upon this Administration’s strong commitment to Indian Country. One key illustration of the work that’s already underway to expand and enhance engagement with tribes took place this week, as the U.S. Department of the Treasury’s Community Development Financial Institutions Fund (CDFI Fund) held the first in a series of workshops to promote economic development in Native American communities. Titled Growing Economies in Indian Country: Taking Stock of Progress and Partnership, the CDFI Fund has partnered with the Federal Reserve system and federal agencies to conduct 6 Economic Development Workshop in Indian Country. Workshop participants were encouraged to:

*Share their views and identify existing challenges to economic development in Indian Country
* Identify best practices and solutions that address these challenges
* Discuss and learn about federal and regional Native economic development initiatives and programs that are aimed at providing assistance to tribal governments and tribal and independent businesses.

Tribes must be the driving force behind federal policies targeted toward job creation and economic development in Indian Country, which is consistent with the policy of Indian self-determination. In addition to working with policy experts across federal agencies, the Council will seek guidance from tribal leaders and experts in Native American economic development. In terms of rural capital access, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development suggests that valuable lessons can be learned from Indian Country by studying examples like the Citizen Potawatomi Community Development Corporation which stimulates small business growth and spurs entrepreneurship and Ho-Chunk Inc. which developed a non-profit corporation to provide supplemental capital to individuals and businesses. Harvard Project staff also point to tribally owned banks--like Bay Bank, owned by the Oneida Tribe of Wisconsin, which serves both Indians and non-Indians alike--as important vehicles for investment in rural communities.

This focus on access to capital is just one example of the kinds of opportunities provided by the White House Rural Council to collaborate with tribal leaders and develop policy recommendations on issues impacting Indian Country.

For more information, please visit our new page dedicated to the Native American community.

Kimberly Teehee, Senior Policy Advisor for Native American Affairs, White House Domestic Policy Council