Frederica asked for some proof of the carnes appealing for financial support, other than mere “personal stories” of such. This is quite lengthy, I apologize for that yet thought it important to post it in it’s entirety.
Bens letter appealing for financial support. This appeal for financial support was originally posted in October of 2007 and was re-posted multiple times in the early months of 2008. This is the appeal to which walks responded with his offer of financial support in the form of a loan to help them out. This appeal was posted all over the internet and sent via email to a great many.
Remember that neither of the carnes are working, they expect others to support them while doing nothing to support themselves. In all fairness, I do know that ben did have a job for a few months last summer, a job that was obtained after this appeal went out and was only held for a few months.
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Note: the website given for EMC:
http://www.eaglecouncil.org has been removed.
Eagle Mountain Spiritual Council Appeal Letter for Support
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/I_P_I/message/17116Dear Friends & Relatives:
Last summer, we were several months behind in land payments. With everyone’s help, we were able to raise a little over $5,000.00 to get current. I had thought I would be able to keep up the payments after that, but the company I was working for didn’t hire me on any other projects after the one I was working on had been completed. A few other leads didn’t pan out. Currently, I have been getting my records together to join the Iron workers union. One of our friends is a foreman at the construction site of the Comanche power plant and said that he would get me hired on. I got all the paperwork to the union hall in Pueblo, and then I was told that I would have to contact the Denver office for an interview. I called the Denver office two days ago, and they have told me they might do interviews in Nov. There are no job prospects for me now.
On the same day, I picked up my mail from the post office and there was a certified letter from our realtors. I called and spoke with them today, and they want me to come in to their office tomorrow and speak with them about giving some of the land back to them. Which is something I find unacceptable. The place where we have our arbor and the locations of the springs where we have water rights to would more than likely be separated. If we relinquished some of the land, then we may end up with neighbors who have no respect for what we do.
I had planned on sending the attached letter out to everyone when we had some things in place, but it seems critical that I send this letter now. Some of you who receive this appeal may not have had the chance to come and experience what we do and what are visions are for the land. So I would ask you to look a our website, the address is below. We are in the process of updating it with the help of a friend in Virginia. We are trying to upload an image to cafepress.com so that we could have some products to sell online. The proceeds would not be as much as if we did it ourselves, but it would be a way to start generating funds to have our shirts made by Native owned companies at a greater profit to ourselves.
So I am asking each of you to take a little time to read the attached letter and email or call me about how much you can support or what else you can do. And I will be emailing some of you individually to discuss some thoughts or ideas I have.
Thanks everyone, Ben
-- “Empowering the Peoples’ Vision through a return to our Traditions”
http://www.eaglecouncil.org ============
Eagle Mountain Spiritual Council
Appeal Letter for Support
October 11th, 2007
Introduction
This email is going out to more than 100 people that I have met and have known and I hope that each of you will take time to read this lengthy letter. We are at a critical point in the development of our organization and we desperately need your help.
This an appeal for any support you can offer. I am planning an aggressive campaign to raise funds through for the Eagle Mountain Spiritual Council, our Land Fund and for the Eagle Mountain Sun Dance (next years dates are July 13th – 20th).
We formed the EMSC as a church and filed with the Colorado Secretary of State, and we have a federal Employee Identification Number. The IRS guidelines states that it is not necessary for a church to file for a 501 ( C )(3), but it would be to our advantage to do so. The reason is that not a lot of foundations will fund religious activities, and even less for traditional Native based organizations.
To become a federal non-profit, we would have to come up with $700 or $750.00 since we expect that we will have more than $10,000.00 income. It is $350.00 if we expect less than $10,000.00. There are a number of programs we want to initiate as an organization and you can find those details at our website
http://www.eaglecouncil.orgAlong with the fee, we will need to build our infrastructure to not only accommodate our guests for Sun Dance: such as the completion of the kitchen, root cellar water storage & lines, additional composting outhouses, and a roundhouse. We also need to get the grader repaired, obtain a backhoe & dump truck, diesel engine vehicles, and a bio-diesel plant. We have also had problems with cattle coming onto our property since we do not have a fence that completely surrounds the property. Also, an important need is to have a home, a parsonage if you will, that I can live in on the land so that we can be there to take care of things. We had an opportunity to acquire seven mobile homes, but we had no money to pay $1200.00 per trailer to move them here. So we didn’t get them. In a brief conversation with the county building inspector, he wouldn’t have allowed it.
Another project is setting up a summer youth camp. We’d like to have Tipi’s to house the youth, and teach them necessary survival skills to boost their self-esteem. At times we can have the youth & Elders gathering for passing on stories & traditions. There are a number of youth in the custody of the state who could benefit, but we don’t have the facilities or certified counselors to work with them.
There will have to be a budget written up on the programs and activities that we set up as a priority and then follow down in that order. I had hoped that some of our dancers would be willing to take a program and develop it, but most need training in program management and skills in working within a non-profit organization. That is part of the growing pains for grassroots movements in learning how build a successful organization.
The Land Fund
Ever since the early 1980’s, I have envisioned a place where we could be ourselves and where people can come and get their life in order. I didn’t see it as a program based upon accredited modalities of treatment; I saw it as a way of life based upon traditional philosophies and values. I carried this vision through all the years I traveled around the world, learning and experiencing how other people lived and seen the problems they have had to cope with. Those experiences help to sharpen my vision.
Then it seemed like one day everything fell into place through the prayer my wife and I offered a prayer to find a place to make this vision a reality. We found it in southern Colorado. It is 160 acres of land with rights to two springs. It is bordered on two sides by BLM land; another side is steep hilly land that we don’t expect anyone will be building on it. It is beautiful land and has what it needs to sustain a community. I also know that this is where the Creator has brought us. There have been so many wonderful things that have happened to affirm this belief.
The land was sold to us for $1,000.00 per acre. At this time, we owe a remaining balance of $72,056.00 out of $160,000.00. Currently, we owe $2,068.14, in back payments. Next month we will owe an additional $689.38. We started making payments in 2002, so my family and friends have put in $87,944.00 to date.
I have always intended to pay off this land and then place it into a trust so that the land would never be in danger of being sold. We want this land to be held forever for our families and people. We don’t want anyone to fight over who owns what or to exploit the land of its natural resources for profit.
With the possibility of foreclosure beginning in the next few weeks, we need your help to get the land payments current. We also need your help in getting this land paid off so that we don’t have to deal with this matter again. I have outlined some other ideas in this letter to make that happen, but we need everyone to pitch in where they can. One of my brothers had said it is a shame you have to pay for it. I agree in the fact that as Native people we have been homeless in our homelands. We have a small bit of land now and we don’t want to lose it. If you can help with this urgent need, please call or contact me tonight or in the AM. If enough of you can let me know you have a check in the mail or arrange a transaction, we can assure our realtors that we do have the money coming in and there is no need for foreclosure proceedings to start.
If we lose this land, we lose our Sun Dance and the visions we have shared for the future. This is something that cannot happen.
Fundraising
Another important needs here is to secure the fees to file an application with the IRS for non-profit status, along with the land fund. Preparing and completing the application is simple enough, and once we can submit the application for tax-exempt status, we will receive a letter from the IRS that indicates our application is pending and then we can submit proposals for funding.
There are many ways to raise funds, and I am sure that there are a number of resources on the Internet and the public library to give you ideas. Two fundraising activities are benefit concerts and public speaking. There are some performers who have said they be happy to perform if I had something set up, and I have many other friends who are performers across the country whom I can speak to about assisting us.
I have my credentials to speak publicly and have done so in the past in the past 20 years. I have spoken on Native issues across the US, Canada, Columbia S.A. and in Europe. We are currently working on creating a speakers bureau. We have a few who have agreed to speak for us. When we have a list of the speakers and résumé’s with photo’s, we’ll set up the page on our website. Then we would ask you to forward this information to universities, organizations and church groups.
There are even simple things you can do such as having a benefit yard sale and publicizing it in your area. Other things that could be done is to have arts & crafts items donated for raffles in events such as pow-wows or other events where there will be gathering of people.
In order to have products immediately, such as, t-shirts, coffee cups, and caps, etc., to raise funds, we are setting up an online store at
www.cafepress.com/eaglecouncil. This should, over time, assist us in purchasing our own equipment (button-maker) and paying Native owned business’s to make items with our logo to sell at fund raising events. To make this successful, everyone can encourage your friends and family to visit our website and to support us by making a purchase at our online store.
Some of you who have the connections could host a dinner and invite celebrities or other individuals who are interested in donating to a worthy cause. We all know there are several who regularly contribute and that there are many organizations like us who approach them constantly for support. So if you know people like that and can interest them in coming to a dinner with one of our people as a speaker, I am sure it could be a successful event.
Maybe some of you know people in the casino industry. See if you can get them interested in what we are doing and making a personal introduction. We could secure a spot for a benefit show, or the casino may donate enough to address our needs.
A Prophecy Gathering
If we can get our infrastructure set up to accommodate up to 2000 people, I really need to host a gathering of spiritual leaders who knows the prophecies of their people to share with each other and us. It is something that has not been done on a hemispheric level. From all that I have gathered, most if not all the prophecies have been completed. The Mayan Calendar ends in 2012 and its significance on a spiritual level is connected with other Native prophecies. There is something very important for us to learn from such a gathering.
The expense in providing travel to these people from across the Western Hemisphere will be enormous. Some of the people we will need to hear from may not be allowed into the US, so we may need to travel to other places and hold a field hearing to bring them all together. That is besides providing food, sanitation and water, including housing that many people.
The result from such a gathering is to issue a statement to other world religious leaders explaining what direction our spirituality must take. As Native people who have a responsibility to the Earth, we have a duty to make this statement and live it.
This is a vision that has building within me for more than half of my life. And only in the past five years did so many goals happen in a rush. We have the land where ceremonies can take place, we have water and it is where we can build a self-sustaining community. I am not one who generally asks for help, but we need it now. There is so much to do in the next five years.
How You Can Help
This is where each of you comes in. You are organizers, shakers & movers, and artists of all kinds. Some of you are homemakers, students/teachers or business people. Who ever you are you have some type of skills or experiences that can help us to move forward.
Every person can make some kind of difference, you just need to believe in what you are doing and most importantly, believe in yourselves. I’ve seen it happen with people who never believed they could ever make a difference. I am going to ask each of you to take a few days to think this over before you decide whether or not you can make a commitment to help.
You can make an assessment of what you can do, write them out and let me know within a few days. We can then see where all of our support is going to come from, and we can bring you all together so that you can combine your resources. Then we can work together to set up a calendar of events from say for example, April/May to Sept., with the exception of the month of July for our ceremonies. And with November being Native American Heritage month, get bookings for school/universities for speakers.
If anyone wants to make a financial contribution to help with the Land Fund and IRS filing fees, make your check out to “Eagle Mountain Spiritual Council”, P.O. Box 88, Gardner, CO. 81040. Any funds over and above the filing fees will be applied to where needs are not being met.
If you have questions, please feel free to write or call me (719) 746-0119. If the phone is busy or I don’t answer, leave me a message and what number to call you back at. I will return your call. Don’t anyone think any of you aren’t important enough to help in some way; I’ve contacted you because I know you are and that you can do something. Think of where we would be if the leaders we have today didn’t think they could do anything.
I want to thank you for taking the time to read this and considering what you can do. I hope to hear from you soon.
In the Spirit of Peace,
Ben Carnes,
Sun Dance Chief
