Mountain For for Peace funded a $1,500 grant so that Ned Gymmies can offer a scholarship fund to allow students to participate for free or reduced tuition based on need and to try and keep our participation costs low for families.

Nederland-based Spinning Silica offered a four-week course over the summer where children learned and experienced the healing power of clay. Skills included hand-building, glazing and finalizing. With MFP funding, Spinning Silica was able to award a scholarship each month to one child.

MFP funded supplies for Rise Against Hunger, a Peak to Peak food-packing event sponsored by the Nederland Community Presbyterian Church and hosted at Teens, Inc.

The grant funded a free to the public screening of the ecological film There Will Be Some Who Will Not Fear Even That Void with filmmaker Saeed Taji Farouky, who attended the screening in person to introduce his film and host a post-film discussion. Saeed was a featured artist at the 2023 Mimesis Documentary Festival in Boulder.

The Mountain Forum for Peace fiscally sponsored Joan Gono’s orphanage in N’Zérékoré, Guinea, to facilitate $25,000 in anonymous donations for much needed improvements and operating costs.

The Mountain Forum for Peace funded a screening of Colorado Short Films at the Backdoor Theatre in Nederland.

MFP granted $2,000 to the Fair Shake Reentry Resource Center. Fair Shake is dedicated to increasing reentry success through personal and community focused ownership and engagement opportunities for currently and formerly incarcerated individuals in connection with families, employers, property managers, corrections, and communities.

Ava Hamilton (Arapaho), Jerilyn DeCoteau (Turtle Mountain Chippewa) and Paula Palmer traveled to Concho OK and met with members of the Southern Arapaho tribe (Nov. 11-15), and to Wind River reservation WY and met with members of the Northern Arapaho tribe (Dec. 1-3). This report summarizes the questions we asked and the responses that we heard from the tribes.