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Thursday, January 9, 2014

Picuris Pueblo, NM - 2013 Christmas Give-Away


San Lorenzo Church, at Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico. We had our annual Give-Away at the Pueblo. Unemployment is 80-90%. We meet over 250 people and they were thankful, considerate, and appreciate. We had a wonderful experience. We thank Governor Richard Mermejo, Lieutenant Gary Pyne, and Tribal Secretary Sherry Archuleta for making it one of our most memorable Christmas Give-Aways. Please check out: http://fourdirections-helping-hands.blogspot/ and www.facebook/fourdiectionsinc.

For more on the Church at Picuris Pueblo: http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/spmc/body.1_div.22.html
San Lorenzo Church, at Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico. We had our annual Give-Away at the Pueblo. Unemployment is 80-90%. We meet over 250 people and they were thankful, considerate, and appreciate. We had a wonderful experience. We thank Governor Richard Mermejo, Lieutenant Gary Pyne, and Tribal Secretary Sherry Archuleta for making it one of our most memorable Christmas Give-Aways. Please check out: http://fourdirections-helping-hands.blogspot and www.facebook/fourdiectionsinc.

For more on the Church at Picuris Pueblo: http://southwest.library.arizona.edu/spmc/body.1_div.22.html
We loaded up Tuesday, December 3rd, drove and arrived Wednesday, set up Thursday and Friday, opened the doors Saturday and drove home Sunday. We're looking for a place for an Easter Give-Away and another Christmas Give-Away if anyone has any contact, tribes or pueblos, please let us know.
We were invited to lunch, on Friday, by Governor Mermejo, Lt. Governor Pyne, and tribal secretary Archuleta.  
We had Santa and Mrs Claus with us and took photos of all who wanted in his lap. One graceful elder told us as she sat in Santa's lap, "I haven't sat in Santa's lap in eighty years." She was laughing as was everyone else. 
We printed, signed "Santa's Workshop,' and mail photos back so everyone who wanted one could get one. 


Tuesday, October 22, 2013

2013 FREE Give-Away---Picuris Pueblo, New Mexico


Thanks to Governor Richard Mermejo, Lt Governor Gary Payne and Sherry Archuleta, Secretary to the Governor.

Thursday, December 5 we'll travel to the Picuris Pueblo for our 7th annual FREE Give-Away. Friday, December 6th we'll set up and Saturday, December 7th we'll welcome all the members of the tribe for their opportunity to get items for Christmas, three, six, and 12 months down the road.

Picuris Pueblo sits on the western slopes of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains and is 18 miles south of Taos Pueblo. Average elevation in the pueblo is over 7,000 feet.  It's about 24 miles north of Santa Fe.

Picuris village has occupied its present location since around 750 CE. The Picuris people previously lived in an earlier, larger village now known as Pot Creek, near Taos.

It's a member of the Eight Northern Pueblos. There are 19 Pueblos in New Mexico.

In 2000 the median income for a household in the CDP was $11,528, and the median income for a family was $16,875. Males had a median income of $21,000 versus $23,333 for females. The per capita income for the CDP was $12,492. There were 36.0% of families and 28.7% of the population living below the poverty line, including no under eighteens and 45.0% of those over 64.

The Pueblo of the Picuris is a federally recognized tribe, whose headquarters is in Peñasco, New Mexico. Their own name for their pueblo is Pinguiltha, meaning "mountain warrior place" or "mountain pass place." They speak the Picuris language, a dialect of the Northern Tiwa language, part of the Tanoan language family. Their tribal officers, led by a tribal governor, are elected every two years.

In 1990, 147 of the 1,882 enrolled tribal members lived in the pueblo; however, the number was reduced to 86 in 2000.

Picuris is known for its micaceous pottery. Their major feast day is San Lorenzo's Day on August 10.
Spanish explorer Don Juan de Oñate called them "pikuria" - those who paint

How many places, Pueblos or Reservations have you ever seen such a great sign?

John and Judy Madden
Kenneth and  Carolene Poole
Ray and Karen Reed

Thursday, July 4, 2013

2013 FREE Clothes Give-Away




Attached you will find our letter to Freddie Kaykdahzinne, Tribal Administrator for the Mescalero Apache Tribe, Mescalero, New Mexico for our 2013 -- FREE clothes give-away. We greatly appreciate this opportunity to help the needy of our Native American heritage.

Please share this with your friends. We're always looking for places, reservations, tribes, and individuals to contact with the goal of hopefully helping others.







IF YOU CAN DIRECT US TO PEOPLE, RESERVATIONS, TRIBES OR ORGANIZATIONS THAT WE CAN CONTACT -- PLEASE DO!

Tuesday, January 22, 2013

Paramount Baptist Church, Amarillo, TX, GIRL TALK GROUP helping us "Paying it Forward"

4DirectionsInc --- Paying it Forward   ---- With Greatly Appreciated Help

November 28, 2012 we were blessed to have help sorting, folding and packaging clothes for our 6th Annual FREE Clothes Give-A-Way. 










Life is about sharing, helping, looking out of family, friends, and loved one as well as looking around and seeing where we can help others.

It's easy to hear about someone or a group helping others, the blessings come from being that person or group that does.

Life is great.

4DirectionsInc

John and Judy Madden
Kenneth and Carolene Poole
Marc Wilson
Ray and Karen Reed

Wednesday, January 9, 2013

Article from Ponca City News, December 12, 2012

Below is an article from the Ponca City News about our FREE Clothes "Give-A-Way."

In reality, we give away clothes, toys, Christmas Trees, books, shoes and household goods.  



Please share our blog with all your family, friends, co-workers and anyone who believes in giving to the less fortunate.

John and Judy Madden
Kenneth and Carolene Poole
Ray and Karen Reed
Marc Wilson

Friday, January 4, 2013

2012 Clothes Give-A-Way

After being turned down by four (4) tribes, we decided to go back to Ponca City, Oklahoma for our annual FREE Clothes-Give-A-Way.

It remains hard for us to totally understand what part of FREE is not or can not be understood.

As it turned out we learned people at the Ponca Tribe had been praying that we wouldn't find another place to go and would return to them. Talk about having direct contact with God, they certainly have it.

People are constantly asking us "Why do you do this?"

Here are some reasons.

** A set of grandparents came in with their five grandchildren they were raising. Their daughter had left her children with them and gone. The grandparents were barely making it themselves, still they've stepped up and are raising their grandchildren.

After getting clothes for their grandchildren we noticed he was in the corner of the building, sitting down, and doing something. Our curiosity got the best of us and when he left we went over and found these.




He was ashamed to ask for help.  He found a place out of the way to try on some shoes, for himself, and then leave his extremely worn out shoes.

We had shoes and there were NONE left!


We had shoes for all ages, men, women, youth, children and babies.

** A gentleman walked up to my wife, Judy, and asked her "Why do you do this?"

She told him we started this years ago (2013 will be our seventh year), as we our heritage is Native American and we wanted to help all we can. We'd rather give to our heritage and the needy than give to countries and people who not only don't like us, our religious beliefs, and would rather kill us.

___

2 Quick notes:

1: The four of us (Kenneth and Carolene Poole, Judy and I, John Madden)-hence 4DirectionsInc as who we are: all have Cherokee heritage, but due to our ages and how our ancestors where treated, they didn't acknowledge their heritage thereby making it nearly impossible for us to trace ours.

2: Marc Wilson is on our Board of Directors and helps us in so many ways. He's also helps with the Kwahadi Dancers (Kwahadi.com) as do I, dances at Pow Wows as we all do, is a brother veteran, a successful businessman and a member of the Comanche Little Ponies.

---
The gentleman told Judy he'd been to numerous of things where clothes are given to them, but they're always dirty, in plastic bags, smell, and not wearable. That he had looked at everything we had brought and none of it was dirty, it was all laid out to see, didn't smell and was certainly wearable.

Judy told him we have a rule "if we wouldn't wear it we don't bring it to give away."

With that he thanked her and went about his way.

** Another set of grandparents came in and talked to our wonderful Ponca friend, Maxine Thompson "+", Title XI Part C Director for the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma.


Maxine and her beautiful daughter

They had grandchildren and asked if they could get clothes for the children? She told him yes and helped them find the clothes for the grandchildren. He was embarrassed to have to ask for help.

Maxine not only helped him find clothes for the grandchildren, but convinced both grandparents to look for and get clothes for themselves.

** Maxine told us about numerous people who came in, got clothes themselves, family and friends;  gifts for Christmas; clothes to wear when applying for jobs; and a young lady who was able to find nice clothes that she could wear to her new job at a bank.

We had numerous Christmas trees this time for our lottery.

Lottery: we give everyone a ticket and keep it's matching number, then we draw the matching numbers and who ever has the joining ticket can pick out what ever they want from Christmas trees, children's toys, unique clothing items, household items, one of a kind dolls with hand made clothes by (Carolene Poole "+"), bicycles, and sporting items.

And a special drawing for Veterans, and or veterans spouses, for a quilt.

Veteran's Widow
A North Face brand new 3XL coat






 In addition this year we were gifted to have Santa and Mrs Claus with us. They visited with lots of children, gave out gifts and took pictures with them.



Santa and Mrs Claus
One of the great things, concerning the photos, was how many parents wanted to meet, talk to, and get their photos taken with their children and Santa.






All it all it was a great day. We, 4DirectionsInc, were able to make Christmas a little better for lots of people, children got to see Santa, grandparents were able to take care of their grandchildren, people from many tribes were helped, and God had helped us to help others.

As of our sixth year we've helped over 6,500 people from 50 different tribes.

We have submitted all the paper work to the IRS to become and 501-c-3 Non-profit so we can obtain contributions and grants in order to grow, so as to help even more people and tribes.

We would appreciate you sharing our blog, story, mission with your friends, family, and anyone on you email lists.

John and Judy Madden
Kenneth and Carolene Poole



Monday, November 26, 2012

2012 Clothes Give-A-Way

Finally, after four efforts to 4 different tribes/reservations we've decided to go back to Ponca City, OK. We went there last year and have gone back 2-3 times, this year, to help restock their Clothes Closet.


Our goal has been to go to different tribes/reservations yearly, but that hasn't worked out so we called Maxine Thompson, XI Part C - Director for the Ponca Tribe of Oklahoma, again. Thankfully she was very happy with us wanting to come back there. 


Carolene Poole, Maxine Thompson, Judy Madden

She told us, "the ones who have turned you down don't know what they're missing."

We load and leave December 5th, unload and set up the 6th and 7th, GIVE-A-WAY Saturday, December 8th. 

It's always exciting to meet new people, interact with them, watch them pick out clothes and toys, have our drawing for a Veteran and drawings for very unique items.


Especially the children as they check out the clothes and toys.


We're always looking for tribes and or reservations to take our FREE cloths, toys, books and other things we can get for the benefit of others.

John and Judy Madden
Kenneth and Carolene Poole