By Corvo Rohwer, Puyallup Tribal News
A community youth gathering event was hosted by Tribal youth leaders and Puyallup Tribal volunteers at Chief Leschi Schools Aug. 22, providing a fun and safe summer celebration focused on ages 16-25.
Puyallup Tribal Member Tsitsa Jones said the event was built to foster community healing and to create more safe spaces for members of the community in the young-adult age range.
When developing the agenda, Jones said the youth group wanted to include a variety of inclusive activities they believed the community would want to participate in.
“The first activity we thought of was the car meet, and from there we were thinking, ‘What does our community like to do?’” Jones said. “We thought a lot about how we can go about doing this event in a meaningful way where it feels like they are safe, too.”
Other events included 3v3 basketball tournaments, volleyball and open-mic performances from CLS Director of Culture Sway-la Duenas and Kevin Coats on the high school side of campus. The car meet was held on the elementary side.
Puyallup Tribal Member Will Young said the group was able to partner with the Erased Car Club and Cars and Coins to help build out the event.
“Younger folks, especially Puyallups, love car stuff,” Young said. “The goals we (had) were to have a peaceful drug-, alcohol- and tobacco-free event where people can show off their cars, have fun and hang out.”
The event received widespread community support, with the activities funded by donations through a Puyallup Tribal Member nonprofit. Numerous volunteers also showed up to help out, including assistance from attending food vendors who offered the first 200 Indigenous youth attending the event a free meal and drink voucher.
“We were seeing that the event was becoming pretty large in scale, and so we agreed that we should probably feed these people,” Jones said. “With the vendors, it was really exciting that they were cooperative on having these food vouchers.”
With their first event a success, Credentialed Language Teacher Cynthia LaPlante said the group is now exploring more options when it comes to hosting future community events. Some of these potential plans include more youth gatherings, but also include more culturally-focused events such as a possible Halloween Coastal Jam later in October.
“We’re definitely eager to do another event,” LaPlante said. “We’re also looking to find a balance of activities that bring everyone together in a positive way, and in a positive space with the potential coastal jam to bring in some of our teachings for the community, as well.”
