Who Can Help

WHO CAN HELP INDIAN CANYON NATION?

NOTE: In most cases where the described individual would require a certain set of skills or knowledge in order to fulfill the role, we are looking for an will accept any of the following, or a group composed of a mix of following: trained professionals, interns and/or individuals who have the capacity or the desire to learn about the specific needs involved and then apply those skills to help Indian Canyon.

We are seeking support from organizations that can provide funding assistance.  We also have had many projects lead by interns and community collaberators.  The possibilities are endless.  If you cant offer funding or skill share/volunteer - you still can share and connect us with Foundations,  Organizations, or Agencies that may have means to help our Off-The-Grid Indigenous Community in need.

Literally anyone with integrity, accountability, willingness to receive and respond to constructive criticism, able to thrive as a member of a cooperative team/community and good intentions can help Indian Canyon Nation.

PERMANENT/SEMI-PERMANENT and TEMPORARY/POTENTIALLY RENEWING ONGOING ROLES 

(which, for the time being, would be mostly or completely volunteer):

• NEW BOARD MEMBERS FOR OUR NONPROFIT – We are struggling with a team who came on board in a state of reactive desperation, who never had nor claimed to have the bandwidth to fully perform the duties expected and needed long-term as nonprofit board members, as such they are slow in completing the very necessary yet extremely limited duties they do fulfill, and are completely absent in most areas of expected, established and required board member duties (i.e., and with the most devastating impact, diligently championing achieving the goals of the nonprofit and fundraising duties). As a result, everything's on the shoulders of Kanyon and her already stretched-thin small team support group. We want to find at minimum two new people, perhaps a veteran office manager type who understands non-profit paperwork and infrastructure, and/or one very thirsty hungry fundraising energy creative being ready to engage in the 21st century.

• TEAMS

  • A core team, perhaps a management team

  • Project managers

  • Office management and administration team

  • Marketing team to strategize efforts with social media focus (more on this below)

• Designers and Mentors with a focus of Self-sustained permaculture-informed ecosystem(s)

• Individuals to conduct ecological and botanical surveys

• CULTURAL RESOURCE MANAGERS/MONITORS – Someone to step up and into cultural resource management in our homelands and neighboring areas of Silly-Con Valley so that includes connecting with agencies and city and county governments along with climate collaboratives and ecological restoration and water management systems

ONE-OFF, AVAILABILITY-BASED RECURRING and PROJECT-SPECIFIC NEEDS

• People to come on volunteer days to offer volunteer hours

• A community who helps us find value

• Individuals with carpentry skills to help our museum not suffer from black mold, elder and land worker dwelling construction/installation, etc. (more on this below)

• Water Management Skills needed: from “Waterway and Stream restoration” (Project Idea: Let Your Inner Beaver Shine) to Off-The-Grid living systems, water catchment,  filtrations, etc.

• Safety and Engineering minded community members: Hillside Retention/Erosion Control consultation and knowledge/insight needed, Emergency Safety and Preparedness, etc.

… AND BEYOND

• Anyone of integrity who is on a mission to build capacity

• Anyone with an established network they're willing to engage with and seek aid from 

• Anyone of integrity who is on a mission to save Indian Canyon

• Anyone willing to share these links

• Anyone with ideas, skills, etc. who have interest in assisting in any way we may not have considered – we welcome input from well-intentioned community members!!

Literally anyone with integrity, accountability, willingness to receive and respond to constructive criticism, able to thrive as a member of a cooperative team/community and good intentions can help Indian Canyon Nation.

WHAT ARE THE SPECIFIC NEEDS OF INDIAN CANYON?

• We truly hate to list this first, but in this world, there is one thing that, despairingly, speaks above all else. Money. While we take issue with capitalism as a rule (at least as we have witnessed it being practiced), this is a prime goal, that is needed in order for all of the following reasons, and more:

  • For Indian Canyon Nation to fully recover from the recent floods (more needs for this effort detailed in the next section)

  • For what Indian Canyon is and stands for to survive and thrive

  • For our tribal elders and land to be protected and safe

  • For us to exist as a haven for people to visit for:

    • Ceremony

    • Song

    • Dance

  • For us to spread the beautiful message of the practices, heritage and connection to all living things,

  • To compensate the talented people that are vital (and currently missing) components

  • To pay for the necessary supplies and work

  • To establish and maintain practices and an infrastructure to hopefully make us self-sustaining

We also need assistance vetting, selecting, and maintaining fundraising platform(s) to assist in this effort

• Flood recovery effort

  • Roads and pathways – the main road, Indian Canyon Road, as well as various other roads and pathways in the community from fire roads to those leading to sacred sites, etc., have all needed maintenance and repair for some time. They are all either white gravel or dirt roads/pathways. Following the recent flooding, they're now in dire need of much more extensive repair including erosion reversal, leveling, stream and waterway crossings and repair along roads and pathways as well as proper drainage installation

  • Hillside erosion reversal and prevention

  • Stairway construction to safely access integral infrastructural assets located on slopes and hills

• We are in need of a high-quality, high-output log splitter, specifically suited to produce enough firewood to meet the needs of a wood burning stove to keep Tribal elders warm, and of visitors on the land in need of the firewood for use in ceremony. Currently, we have a 3000 series Oregon Hydraulic Log Splitter, which is powerful and effective, but being a single feed log splitter, is very slow and does not produce a large quantity of wood in a short timeframe. This meets our minimum needs for the time being, however it would be ideal to have something more efficient to serve our community and multiple ceremony circles of over 10 sweat lodges and ceremony gathering spaces. Examples include the TW-3 PTO LOG SPLITTER, priced at $4,140.95, and RUGGEDSPLIT 728-24-RE LOG SPLITTER, priced at $4,395.00.

• Self-sustained permaculture-informed land management

  • Composting toilets

  • Water, soil and organic matter retention

  • Indigenous and medicinal plant restoration

  • Flood prevention

  • Stream restoration

  • Reduce erosion

  • Fire preparedness

  • Landscape stabilization

  • Expert land evaluation and planning, including ecological and botanical surveys

• Off-the-Grid Infrastructure expansion, replacement, upgrade and repair,etc., due to age, outdating, wear, tear and damage prior need, now greatly worsened by flood damage after the Pineapple Express weather surge. So expansion, replacement, upgrade, repair, construction, and/or preservation of infrastructure items, including but not limited to:

  • Structures:

    • Dwellings:

      • Main cabin repair

        • Roof leaks

        • Plumbing issues

          • Shower

          • Filtration

          • Water pressure

        • Black mold removal from shower

        • Electrical wiring maintenance, repair and moderate upgrades

        • General maintenance and structural inspection and evaluation

        • Pest control

          • Rodent, bat and insect removal/extermination

          • Termite and general pest inspection

          • Installation of preventative measures and implementation of preventative practices

      • Two ADA-compliant dwellings (one partial build requiring construction completion, another requiring ground-up build/installation)

        • Single-floor ADA-compliant elder dwelling requiring construction completion. This is for tribal elder Chris. He currently lives in the living room, in a recliner chair, and is in dire need of shelter that will provide ease of living and comfort with ADA-compliance, given that he is a disabled elder.

          • Gas, electric and septic needs: assessment and implementation/installation

          • Rear deck installation

          • ADA-compliance needs assessment and implementation/installation (i.e., ramp, rails, etc. needed)

        • A two-story dwelling needs to be completed for tribal elder Ann-Marie Sayers. She cannot be safely left alone in the cabin. She stays on the ground floor, currently, in the living room, as she cannot climb the stairs to her old bedroom. She cannot leave the cabin and safely walk on the land as there are stairs or a long ramp she’s required to climb down to get her feet on the Earth. The barn next to the house could be replaced with a studio for Ann-Marie so she can more safely move around and experience nature.

          • A second floor is needed as a dwelling for a caretaker

          • Gas, electric and septic needs; assessment and implementation/installation

          • Deck construction and connection to the main cabin’s deck, and a very short ramp to the earth

          • ADA-compliance needs assessment and implementation/installation (i.e., ramp, rails, etc. needed) 

      • Existing groundskeeper dwelling repair & upgrades (in-depth assessment required)

    • Cultural Center / Museum restoration, repair, upgrades and expansion

  • Security/safety considerations

    • Prevention of animal/pest damage to food systems

      • Barrier installations to stop gophers

      • Fencing to stop deer

      • General overview of further  foodway system development potential, planning and implementation of said systems, and evaluation of any needed security and preservation installations and protocol to be installed and implemented

    • Unwelcome Intruder Prevention (aka The Colonial/Colonizer Entitlement Mentality Defense Program)

      • Information/Interpretation Kiosk to provide information for “explorers” who happen to “wander” onto the land

        • Well-informed and/or researched analysis, planning and implementation of what that may evolve into

      • Fences and/or gates

        • Ideally a locked front gate at the valley entryway

          • Would need a voice-box intercom and camera for visitors to be able to announce themselves, be communicated with verbally and simultaneously seen via the camera, and either buzzed in if approved or told to turn around

      • Additional strategically placed security cameras along the canyon and dwelling structures (possibly not every eventual dwelling structure)

      • High qualify, reliable internet along the canyon to ensure both the entry gate camera feed and its intercom audio, as well as the additional security camera feed along the canyon, is accessible in real-time

      • Power-sources for cameras and intercom (ideally solar powered)

  • Landscaping

  • Utilities such as irrigation systems

• Desperately need heavy equipment 

• We need help in establishing a loud FAFSA presence in college financial aid offices. 

Students partaking in a Work Study Program may volunteer for local nonprofits that need help, and in the process they will get paid minimum wage as part of this government-funded program, meaning that Indian Canyon Nation, Costanoan Indian Research, nor the members of the tribal family will be burdened with the responsibility of paying these students.

The students can search for causes they are interested in, and if they find Indian Canyon Nation, and are interested, they can help us and apply that work towards the satisfaction of work study funding volunteer hours.

There are a lot of actions items for this need:

• We need a way to make sure we are enrolled or set up, etc., any types of actions that may need to be taken in advance, and make sure that we are officially a viable option without any action needed on our part on that end

• We need to amplify our story and become included in work study programs lists as a local nonprofit that are 501c3 that needs love

Imagine if multiple college students who wanted to help but also needed funds were able to get at least minimum wage for volunteering for an indigenous nonprofit, and the nonprofit benefited from their work in all of the different fields of the student's interest (because, as has been stated, we need help with physical bodies on the land, from flood damage repair, to carpentry, to helping our museum recover from black mold, to building an elder dwelling that is off the grid so would require off the grid living systems which include carpentry, plumbing and electrical, the need for a botanical survey, etc.). There are so many needs that would fulfill real-world experience in so many fields for students.

• We need help to revitalize the Mutsun language

  • Jonathan Bunting has an idea to create a campaign to have Paramount Pictures fund this, and pay for Marc Okrand to collaborate with Kanyon and other dedicated Mutun descendants in making this revitalization a reality

  • The angle is that this would be in repayment for the many millions of dollars Paramount Pictures has made off of the Star Trek franchise, in part because of the work of Marc Okrand, who called upon his knowledge from obtaining a Master’s Degree in the Mutsun language (primarily, with acknowledgment of borrowing from other languages, also), to create the Klingon and Vulcan languages.

• We need soil building to bring back milkweed to an area where the seed bank was damaged and bring back milkweed for the monarch butterflies

• Assistance for Kanyon with work around curriculum development and culturally sensitive and culturally competent approaches to teaching and engaging with students

• Marketing strategies and methods

  • Social media marketing (emphasis)

  • PR marketing (needed)

  • Cause marketing (needed; be like Esalen Institute in presence without the spiritual grunginess)

  • Brand marketing (needed; be like Esalen Institute in presence without the spiritual grunginess)

  • B2B marketing (possible)

  • Outbound marketing (possible)

  • Search engine marketing (possible)

  • Content marketing (possible)

  • Email marketing (possible)

  • Mobile marketing (possible)

• We need to secure the land

  • We need to get in contact with lawyers and ways to protect Indian Canyon because

  • We need to ensure that it is maintained by the indigenous peoples of the land

  • Right now, we have a vineyard encroaching and someone else who owns parts of our hillsides and parts of our driveway

    • Believe that they're entitled to it so we fear development

  • We need to figure out how to get ahold of California Indian legal services and finding funds to pay for some retainers