Happy Thanksgiving, also known as Reparation Thursday! If you are a descendant of the Europeans who settled the place now known as the U.S., and you don’t have a farm to give back this year, here are some smaller options.
Especially if you live near it, you can donate to the Tomaquag Museum, or a museum of Native art, history and culture in your area. I’ll even look one up for you if you leave your region in the comments!
You could donate to the American Indian College Fund and help someone who wants to go to college go to college.
You could support language restoration, preservation and revitalization efforts, like ‘Aha Pūnana Leo, the Wôpanâak Language Reclamation Project, Liicugtukut Alutiiq, the Advocates for Indigenous California Language Survival, the Euchee/Yuchi Language Project, or another in your area/region (this is just a small sample–search for the bolded phrase above + the name of a tribe or nation in your area). Not all of these sites have links for donation, but if they don’t and especially if they’re in your region, it’s worth writing to them and see if they can accept donations from individuals.
You could help fund indigenous activism that is also explicitly ecological activism, like the Indigenous Environmental Network, or other projects that work toward sustaining Native peoples and cultures, like Running Strong, or projects that seek justice for Native peoples and cultures, like the Lakota People’s Law Project. Again, these are starting points; there are plenty more, and it’s good to look for something associated with the people whose land you’re living on.
This, is, pretty literally, the least you can do.
Leave other ideas in the comments! Or if there’s a problem you know of with any of these organizations, let me know about that too–I cross-checked where I could, but have no direct experience with most of them.
Today is a good day to give back.
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