Prior Lake, Minnesota - The Shakopee Mdewakanton Sioux Community announces a $1,000,000 grant for fiscal year 2008 to the Santee Sioux Nation of Nebraska. The grant will support community improvements and tribal programs to include the Pay Down Shop E-Z, land purchase, youth programs, elderly programs, LIHEAP (low income heating energy assistance program), an incubator business program, Santee Sioux Transit, the Dakota Language Program, the Bison/Tourism enterprise, and other community improvements.

With this grant, the SMSC has awarded a total of $5,000,000 in grants to the Santee Sioux Nation over the past few years.

"We have a duty as Dakota people to help other Indian Tribes when we can. Seeing the Santee Sioux Nation grow in self-sufficiency and their people have good paying jobs helps support and encourage tribal sovereignty, which is good for all of Indian Country," said SMSC Chairman Stanley R. Crooks.

A Dakota nation, the Santee were forcibly removed from Minnesota after the Dakota Conflict of 1862 first to Crow Creek, South Dakota, and then to an isolated area in northern Nebraska along the Missouri River. Health care, social services, education, employment opportunities, infrastructure, and other human services generally taken for granted have not been historically available to them. The Santee have maintained close social ties to the SMSC since the late 1800s.

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