USD and Vermillion Schools Awarded $75,000 Grant to Support Native Students
This collaborative project, titled “Bridging K-12 & Higher Education: Creating Community Partnerships for Native Students & Families,” received $50,000 annually in 2023, 2024 and 2025 to provide an opportunity for partnership across the Vermillion School District and USD. For the 2026 cycle, the project team—Megan Red Shirt-Shaw, Ph.D., director of Native Student Services at USD; John Little, Ph.D., director of Native recruitment and alumni engagement at USD; Brooke Jackson, coordinator of Native Student Services at USD; and Trinity Redday, Title 6 coordinator for the Vermillion School District—were awarded an increase of $75,000 to continue their efforts.
“It has been a wonderful opportunity to expand access of Native representation across Vermillion,” Red Shirt-Shaw shared. “We are so excited to continue this work for the fourth year in a row.”
Native students comprise 19% of USD’s student population in Vermillion, with more than 30 tribal nations represented on campus. The Ofstad Foundation grant has provided support for programs and initiatives designed to celebrate Native culture and promote a sense of community across the university and K-12 systems.
Over the last three years, the funding has provided an opportunity to bring in many Native performers and speakers from all over the region and country to the Vermillion School District and USD, including Frank Waln, the Sampson Brothers, Jackie Bird, Mark Mindt, Angeline Boulley, Supaman and DJ Element. The elementary school has partnered with USD’s Tiospaye Student Council to host an annual Halloween bash where dinner, candy and a cake walk are featured, averaging more than 300 Vermillion family attendees the last two years.
New in 2025, the grant is supporting a mentorship program in which current USD undergraduate students are serving as mentors to Vermillion elementary school students. Their mentorship includes visiting one-on-one, coloring together, creating slime packs and studying Lakota and Dakota language words.
The grant has also been used annually to purchase Star Quilts to honor USD Native student graduates and Vermillion High School graduates per Lakota and Dakota protocol, as well as sets of the nine South Dakota tribal nation flags to be hung in Vermillion’s schools and utilized during USD events such as USD’s Native Heritage Basketball and Football Games.
As Little reflected, “Vermillion has always had a strong Native community, and the Ofstad Foundation grant has been used to create positive representation that reflects Native heritage at USD, Vermillion Public Schools and the greater state of South Dakota. It has impacted thousands of students and provided opportunities to celebrate Native students through their history, culture and language.”
Hopes for this year include continuing the mentorship program, bringing in more speaker opportunities for students and hosting community-focused programming—including offering a Native art market, screening free Native-focused movies for the community, and expanding Native book options in the schools and local library.
“This grant reflects the power of partnership and the impact we can have when we align around student success,” said Michelle Maloney, board president of VCAF. “The Vermillion Area Community Foundation is grateful to the Ofstad Foundation for its $75,000 support and to the University of South Dakota’s division of Native Student Services for its collaboration as we expand outreach to Native American students.”
Vermillion Area Community Foundation
The Vermillion Area Community Foundation was established in 2000 for the purpose of creating an endowed fund to build sustainable financial resources that can assist with capital projects that address community needs and that impact and enhance the quality of community life for residents of all ages. The foundation funds projects that improve the quality of life in the Vermillion area and have a positive impact on the community, awarding approximately $20,000 annually over the course of up to two grant cycles to local organizations.
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