Fundraiser held in wake of shootings

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It was a typical Tuesday for Autumn EagleSpeaker and her son Willow. They woke up and readied for school. She attends Mount Royal College and he goes to a Native school located in the city. As is their morning custom, they went to the store to buy a newspaper, and that's when things took a turn for the worse.

Ten Native people dead, a headline screamed.

The community of Red Lake, Minnesota had suffered a most awful fate the day before. A troubled young man had killed his grandfather and his companion on March 21, then headed to a school on the reservation where he shot dead a security guard, a teacher and five students before turning his weapon on himself.

Autumn's seven-year-old was scared and confused.

'These poor people,' he said. And then his sympathy for others turned into fear for his own safety.

"It could happen at my school," he told his mother.

"He actually had a moment where he was scared," said EagleSpeaker. "And he's like 'Mom, is that going to happen in my school?' I said, 'No honey. It's not.'" But EagleSpeaker admitted she couldn't assure him completely that it wouldn't.

"It could happen at his school. It could happen at any school," she told Sweetgrass.

A wave of emotion came over her, and EagleSpeaker knew in that moment that she had to do something to help the community that was suffering half a continent away.

Her work in the arts community in Calgary gave her access to local talent.

"So I just said 'OK, I know these people.' So I drafted a couple of e-mails to different people, and called some other people on the phone...

"Everybody was really receptive. They're like... 'Tell me what I can do.'"

What resulted was the Red Lake Fundraiser, held at Mount Royal on April 2 with a little help from her friends and family, young and old.

Championship hoop dancer Dallas Arcand, rap singers The Brothas Grimm, the Black Powder Drum Group, young Albert Goulet, an Elvis lip sinc artist, and many others performed for a small but appreciative crowd.

Diana Hellson, 13, read a poem by Danielle McDonald, 16, an American Indian high school student from Minneapolis, Minn.

"Six are injured and 10 are dead. This is something we all should dread," Hellson read. "This can not go on a moment longer. We need to come together and become stronger."

Hellson, a junior high student, told Sweetgrass, the shootings have made life difficult for her at school.

While Native people have never been treated well by other students there, Diana Hellson said, after the shootings there was more name-calling and abuse. She told us the other students accused the Native children of having FAS and suggested that soon those Native students would show up with guns and go on a shooting spree.

"It's kinda a racist school," she said.

As part of the afternoon's commemoration, the Crying Woman's Song from the Yellow Thunder Sundance was sung. Brief biographies of each of the victims were read.

As for the shooter, Jeff Weise, 16, he was not forgotten during the day's event.

"I also feel pain for him too," said EagleSpeaker. "To think about what he must have been going through himself, to just get to a point where he just ... I think, maybe, years before, just so many things happened in his life... his father killing himself, his mother not being in a state where she can care for him, and him having to go from home to home to be with his grandfather finally.

"I think if a kid is not raised in a loving environment, or doesn't have the opportunity to talk about how they are feeling, or have someone to say 'How are you doing,' then it makes a huge

difference, and that poor boy didn't have that. He was just a really lost and confused soul. And I feel sad for him. I feel very sad for his family as well. It's not just about the victims. It's about him as well."

The money raised by EagleSpeaker and her talented team of entertaining volunteers will be put in a money order and sent, along ith a condolence book and a copy of a video that was made of the performances, to the Red Lake band office.

Eaglespeaker's aunt lives and works in the Red Lake community. Wiese's mother, who was injured and incapacitated in a car accident, is one of her clients.

"When [my aunt] found out that we were doing something here, she was amazed. She told everybody that she knew that Calgary cares."