With the help of Native American Bank, a North Dakota tribe is building a culturally relevant treatment facility — and piloting a funding model other tribes could follow.
Marion County April 6, 2021
A rendering in the office of Erin Belgarde, Strategic Planning Coordinator for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians (TMBCI) in Rolette County, North Dakota, shows a dream becoming reality: the Turtle Mountain Recovery Center, a 100-acre campus with a central facility, supportive residences, confidence course, equine therapy stables, sweat lodge, medicinal garden and walking trails.
“The students at Purdue did that for us,” Belgarde says of the campus design.
The Turtle Mountain Reservation covers 72 square miles next to the Canadian border, so Belgarde and others were surprised when a USDA-funded program matched them with Purdue Extension.
April 6, 2021
A rendering in the office of Erin Belgarde, Strategic Planning Coordinator for the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians (TMBCI) in Rolette County, North Dakota, shows a dream becoming reality: the Turtle Mountain Recovery Center, a 100-acre campus with a central facility, supportive residences, confidence course, equine therapy stables, sweat lodge, medicinal garden and walking trails.
“The students at Purdue did that for us,” Belgarde says of the campus design.
The Turtle Mountain Reservation covers 72 square miles next to the Canadian border, so Belgarde and others were surprised when a USDA-funded program matched them with Purdue Extension.
Michael Wilcox, Purdue Extension’s Program Leader for Community Development, started working with the TMBCI in late 2019 through the USDA’s Rural Economic Development Innovation (REDI) program. REDI funds technical assistance for up to two years to help rural towns and regions create and implement economic devel