Team Carrie Powwow For Hope Fundraiser

On September 23, 2023, my daughter, 3 of her children, and 2 grandchildren were at the Powwow for Hope. Every year we support this fundraiser in our role as Team Carrie Powwow for Hope Fundraiser. My sister died in 2010, on September 24. She died from leukemia.

Carrie died one year after the diagnosis of leukemia, at age 53.

This activity used to be the first Saturday in May. I feel like I may have been overly critical this time as I always have feelings around the anniversaries of loved ones death anniversaries.

I originally thought being involved in making and selling items for the fundraiser would benefit me by keeping me away from the grief feelings. Anger is one of them. Depression is another. Posting pictures on Facebook and seeing others' photos and comments contribute to my grief as well.

Each year I am aware of others also. My grandmother died from widespread cancer. Then a couple of my uncles, and cousins died from cancer. My cousin Faith died from the same cancer I have.

I was at a friend's wake last week. She died from breast cancer. Her breast cancer had spread to her liver and lung without it being found before it killed her.

That is scary for me as someone with a treatable, probably not curable cancer.

I'm sure you can understand when I say I HATE cancer! I spoke with a cancer therapist who helped me in 30 minutes. It may be time to reconnect!

My two Dr. Suess Cancer sweatshirts are put away until I have a cancer appointment. Then he said I should wear them to those appointments. He told me, "What you resist persists!"

He also asked, have you heard the saying, "Eat an elephant one bite at a time" when I was talking about having trouble attending quarterly appointments. He suggested thinking of that may help me.

The last time I attended in person, I wore I pink shawl that I was given by the powwow for hope participants. It was to be my shawl to wear for the pink shawl dance in memory of women who died from breast cancer and those surviving breast cancer.

I thought I would dance for my friend Lila, who died just a week before this event from breast cancer. The announcer said that breast cancer survivors should sign up to dance. I left my shawl hanging. A friend stopped by and said she was signed up, and there were only four others.

I wasn't planning to dance when I got the pink shawl, so I had no mocassins, and I didn't have my jingle dress on that time in the photo. I had a skirt as I almost always have one in the car for ceremonies.

Everyone is welcome to attend a powwow. I was just told again that a person didn't know they could just go to a powwow. Then when I explained that they could attend any powwow they were concerned they may get beat up.

I have never heard of that. I suppose it could happen, but if I haven't heard of that in 69 years of life, it must not happen.

Breast cancer was the cancer that stood out at the Powwow for Hope this year. A childhood cancer was talked about after the breast cancer talk but this powwow for hope was heavy on breast cancer.

Another thing was clear to me. Our group was selling items to raise funds. Most of the tables were displays and giveaway tables, so some people thought the calendars we had were free, and other material was free. It was not like that in previous years.

There were people selling items to raise funds for the American Indian Cancer Foundation.

In Minnesota, our Ojibwe language people are the largest group of Native people and the Dakota language people were well represented which made my Ojibwe language calendar not as big a seller as it was in previous years.

This is the second time I made a calendar with the months in Ojibwe with my sister's art and my mother's recipes included. I knew there were more Dakota people there, as the man at the table next to ours would greet everyone in Ojibwe. They would come back with a greeting in Dakota.

Very few people wore masks and it appeared to be well attended.

I couldn't find a way to get contributions directly to Team Carrie, so that didn't happen and we did not make our goal of $500+ that we normally make for the fundraiser. We turned in $305. at around 4:00 p.m. that day. About four hours after the powwow started.

The money was posted today about two hours ago and three days after the event. I probably need to take a year off or allow someone else to lead this group of ours there. It is their event, and they can do whatever they want to. I can decide if I wish to participate. There are other ways to contribute.