Back To School Giveaway

Welcome to our Back To School Giveaway!

🎉 Thanks to Pendleton, we're giving away 3 incredible prizes! 🎉

Enter daily for more chances to win. 🎟️✨

Summer's over, and it's time to head back to school! 🎒📚 To celebrate, we want to honor all the students returning to the classroom this year. Wishing everyone an amazing year ahead! 🌟

We're also shining a spotlight on the American Indian College Fund. 🌟 Thanks to their scholarship program, many students have doors opened to them. They've awarded over $300 million to Native students! 💰🎓

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American Indian College Fund

Pendleton has been supporting the work of the College Fund through the sale of special blankets since 1995, and has provided over $2.6 million in scholarship support for American Indian and Alaska Native students attending Tribal Colleges and Universities (TCUs). Over the years, blankets have been designed by various designers and guest artists, including Larry Ahvakana, Preston Singletary, Mary Beth Jiron, Tracie Jackson, and many more.

The American Indian College Fund has been the nation’s largest nonprofit supporting Native higher education for 33 years. The College Fund believes “Education is the answer”. Since its founding in 1989 the College Fund has provided more than $345 million in scholarships, program, community, and tribal college support. The College Fund also supports a variety of academic and support programs at the nation’s 35 accredited tribal colleges and universities, which are located on or near Indian reservations, ensuring students have the tools to graduate and succeed in their careers. For more information about the American Indian College Fund, please visit www.collegefund.org.

Prizes

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About Prizes

Morning Storm Blanket

In 1865, a young beader created this design for her own moccasins and leggings. Generations later, Cydnee Shangreaux has translated her fourth-great grandmother’s pattern to tell the Morning Storm story. Two borders of Morning Stars represent a long life with many winters. Steps represent a journey, with the two dots on either side signifying a good life from childhood to adulthood. Thunderbirds serve as messengers along the way, carrying songs through the storm.

Cydnee Shangreaux (Oglala Sioux) is a beadwork artist who was inspired to preserve her family’s bead patterns by the passing of several older relatives. “Morning Storm” was created by her great-great-great-great grandmother, Selena Marshall, for her own moccasins and leggings. These were passed down through the maternal line until they reached Cydnee. Cydnee is a resident of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, and student at Oglala Lakota College studying Office Technology. “As the first grandchild to be interested in these family patterns, I use my art to tell stories of my life, family, and the places I enjoy.”

Directions Home Blanket

The plight of homeless veterans inspired Troy Tso (Diné), a fine arts and graphic design graduate of Diné College, to consider the meaning of home. His design’s center is a Hogan, a traditional Diné structure of wood and earth. The roof’s construction—shown from the inside looking up—is surrounded by the four mountains that bound the Navajo Nation: Dibé Ntsaa (Hesperus Peak), Sisnaajini (Blanca Peak), Tsoodzil (Mount Taylor), and Dook’o’oosliid (the San Francisco Peaks).

Troy Tso is a Diné (Navajo) artist raised in the community of Burntcorn Valley, Arizona. His clans are Coyote Pass-Jemez (Mą’íídeeshgíízhíníí), Red Running into Water people (Táchii’nii), Tangle (Ta’neeszahni), and Mexican (Naakai dine’é). Tso is inspired by family and influenced by Diné He began drawing at a young age, and has progressed from sketching to graphic art and design with ideas that come from living each day as Diné. “Art has the responsibility to heal and inspire.”

American Indian College Fund Mug Set

Unity

The Lakota word for horse is Sunka Wakan, or Holy Dog. At sunrise, a horse gallops through a Lakota village of traditional tipis. A geometric Morning Star greets the dawn over each dwelling, announcing the coming of sunlight to the earth and the gift of a new day. The horse or Holy Dog stands for strength and unity, the central figure in a design that represents how Nature and native people are one.

Chelysa Owens-Cyr (Pasqua First Nations Plains Cree/Salteaux) is an artist from Montana’s Fort Peck Indian Reservation. As a College Fund scholar, she studies Business Administration at Fort Peck Community College, with plans to graduate in 2021. She is a self-taught contemporary ledger artist, beader, graphic designer and painter, influenced by her family and culture. “I work with many mediums to share my personal teachings, beliefs, stories and visions with the people.”

Water

This blanket was inspired by a photograph taken by historic photographer Edward S. Curtis. It incorporates classic sawtoothed lines and the dragonfly, an emblem of water and symbol of life.

Courage to Bloom

Arrow shapes in this pattern symbolize finding a good path in life, acknowledging that every path holds pitfalls and dangers, as well as opportunity. To honor the loss of missing and murdered indigenous Native people, an hourglass shape at the base of the largest blossom symbolizes life’s spiritual journey through the most difficult circumstances. Designer Deshawna Anderson (White Mountain Apache/Crow) is a College Fund scholar. “Courage to Bloom” is the inaugural winner of the student competition for the American Indian College Fund blanket design.

Deshawna Anderson (White Mountain Apache/Crow) attends Little Big Horn College in Crow Agency, Montana, where she studies Business Administration as an American Indian College fund scholar. She is of the Butterfly Clan and a child of the Greasy Mouth. As a visual learner, she became interested in art as a tool to educate the viewer on the perspective of its creator. Influenced by Apache and Crow culture from the Crazy Mountains to Salt River Canyon, she also draws inspiration from historic and contemporary burden baskets, beadwork, quillwork, and attire. Her design, “Courage to Bloom,” chosen from a field of 48 entries, is the inaugural winner of the College Fund blanket design contest.

Many Nations

Many Nations pays tribute to the Indigenous person representing more than one tribe. An indigenized version of DNA frames the initials ‘M’ and ‘B’ to create a symbol for ‘mixtblood.’ The hourglass shape represents the Tsiiyéeł, a symbol to honor the Navajo matriarch society. A serape layout honors the Yaqui, and turquoise symbolizes the Pueblo of Laguna. These are the Many Nations of Dustin Lopez, a College Fund scholar, designer, and artist. Lopez reclaimed his identity through powwow, where he learned inter-tribal dances and embraced his mixtblood identity with a full heart and open mind.

Dustin Lopez (Diné/Laguna Pueblo/Pascua Yaqui) is based in Phoenix, Arizona. He is currently working as a designer, muralist, and educator, and attends Diné College, majoring in Fine Arts with an emphasis in Design. With a passion for creativity, Lopez aspires to be a role model on and off the reservation. “My dream is to use art and design as a driving force to reclaim our language, culture, and identities as ‘mixtbloods'. By combining modern and street art with contemporary art, I hope to inspire successfully between both worlds.”

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Last Updated on August 22, 2024 by Paul G