2021 Honorees

Congratulations to our 2021 Enduring Spirit Award honorees Boo Balkan Foster (Apache/Adopted Makah), Carol Emarthle-Douglas (Northern Arapaho/Seminole), Lori Lea Pourier (Oglala Lakota), and Michele Vendiola (Swinomish). Special recognition and presentation of the Sister Spirit Award to Abigail Echo-Hawk (Pawnee).

Boo Balkan Foster, Apache/Adopted Makah

Boo Balkan Foster is part of the nationally recognized Native American Education Department of Seattle Public Schools, and has been a teacher for 26 years. She is the šəqačib teacher at Chief Sealth International High School and Denny International Middle School.

Boo designed the framework of šəqačib, a leadership course offered in Seattle Public Schools, to empower her students by centering student voice. šəqačib is a southern Lushootseed word that means “Raising Hands.” It is a non-verbal way to say hello, thank you and show the highest of respect. Boo decided early on to use this as a metaphor to guide her work with students. Everything she does is to lift them up. Her classes are a place of community building and belonging for Native high school and middle school youth. Every year, Boo’s šəqačib students are published in a chapbook sharing their stories. The story of her class is also featured in Florida International University’s Community Literacy Journal (Spring 2021) in an article Boo co-authored. The article highlights the wisdom of her students putting them and her class on the national stage. The success of Boo’s class paved the way for a second šəqačib in Seattle Public Schools.

Boo believes success is achieved through growing strong relationships built on trust and a firm grounding in one’s identity. She believes all success is relational; however, none is more important than the relationship she builds with her students. She reminds her students of their inherent strength and intelligence. She doesn’t shy away from difficult topics such as genocide and colonization; rather, leveraging them to push her students forward no matter the obstacle. She makes the invisible visible, pushing Native peoples to their rightful place as leaders. This is evident in the film created by Seattle Public Schools’ Native Education Department, “I am Native” in which Boo centers her students.

A fierce advocate, Boo is steadfast in demanding Native students have not only representation but voice when decisions are made, student outcomes discussed and policy developed. As such, she is pleased to host school board members, visiting international educators and community members in her classes. She piloted curriculum for the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian resulting in shifts to align learning levels for high school students. Boo’s decisions have a laser focus on students and making Native peoples visible.

Boo earned her BA from the University of Washington where she also rowed on the Women’s Varsity Crew Team. She earned her MAT from Seattle Pacific University and holds Washington State teaching endorsements in English, Language Arts, Special Education and Visual Arts.

As an adoptee, Boo was raised away from her tribal people and was often the only Native growing up; as such, she learned to be proud, even if alone. She encourages and supports her students to be proud of their identities even though most, as urban Indians, are away from their tribal homelands and are often the only Natives in their classes. Her greatest hope is her students take away from her class the knowledge they are smart, they are strong and they are loved. The strength of their ancestors lives in them.

Carol Emarthle-Douglas, Northern Arapaho/Seminole

Carol Emarthle-Douglas, originally from Oklahoma is an enrolled member of the Northern Arapaho tribe of Wyoming, and is also Seminole, from the Seminole Nation of Oklahoma. Her baskets are what she describes as Traditional/Contemporary. Traditional, as her baskets are created in the traditional coiling technique; contemporary, as her materials of choice include spring hemp twine, waxed linen thread, reed, raffia and silk thread. She has been weaving this style for 20 years. Carol has won numerous awards for her baskets and has her work among collections in museums throughout the US.

Carol shares her basket weaving skills within her community. She taught for the Indian Education Program in the Eastside for the Lake Washington, Northshore and Bellevue, Washington school districts, and at the Edmonds Community College. She has also taught at the Chief Seattle Club, an organization that assists the Native American homeless population of Seattle, at the Northwest Indian College on the Lummi reservation, and with the Hazel Pete Institute of Basketry in Chehalis, Washington. Carol believes it is important to pass on this knowledge with others and to encourage others to carry on Indigenous weaving history.

Carol has been an associate member of the Northwest Native American Basketweavers Association for 10 years, and is a member of the National Basketry Organization and the NW Basket Guild, the Native American Art Studies Association and the Northern Arapaho Artists Society. Learn more about Carol’s work at cemarthleart.com.

Lori Lea Pourier, Oglala Lakota

Lori Lea Pourier, an enrolled member of the Oglala Sioux Tribe, has served as the President of First Peoples Fund since 1999. Lori has been involved in the arts, social justice, and community development fields for 30 years. Her early work began at First Nations Development Institute and as the Executive Director of the International Indigenous Women’s Network. She has dedicated much of her life to reconnecting Native communities to their cultural assets and bringing new philanthropic resources to Native artists, culture bearers and tribal communities.

As founding president of First Peoples Fund, Lori has forged unique research about the central role of artists and culture bearers in Native economies and communities, and shaped the organization’s deeply rooted Indigenous Arts Ecology model. She has ensured that the First Peoples Fund never wavers from its mission to honor and support the Collective Spirit™ of Native artists and culture bearers through fellowships, grants, trainings, and community-based partnerships. First Peoples Fund’s most prestigious award, the Jennifer Easton Community Spirit Award, honors and provides resources to Native culture bearers who selflessly give of themselves and bring spirit back to the community. The award is named for First Peoples Fund’s founding donor, with whom Lori shared an enduring friendship and commitment to Native culture and communities.

Lori is a 2017 Ford Foundation Art of Change Fellow. She received the 2013 Women’s World Summit Foundation Prize for Creativity in Rural Life and the Center for Social Innovation Fellowship at Stanford School of Business. She has served two terms on the board of directors of the Grantmakers in the Arts and Native Americans in Philanthropy, and currently serves on the Library of Congress American Folklife Center Board of Trustees, as well as the Jerome Foundation Board of Directors. Lori contributed to the National Endowment for the Arts’ publication How to Do Creative Placemaking and was recognized as one of four women leading change in Native communities by the Johnson Scholarship Foundation. The Foundation noted that Lori is “a leader in the field – not just for Native arts and culture – but arts and culture period. She is the go-to person for the ‘creative economy’ in Indian Country."

Lori is a Core Partner with Arts in a Changing America, the Cultural New Deal and the Intercultural Leadership Institute (ILI), a collaboration between First Peoples Fund, Alternate ROOTS, the PA’I Foundation, and National Association of Latino Arts and Culture.

Michele Vendiola, Swinomish

Michele Vendiola is known by her nickname Shelly, and has Swinomish and Visayan ancestry. She has served as an educator, facilitator, activist, and mediator for over 29 years. She co-founded the Native Community Engagement and Peacemaking Project and provides facilitation and community engagement services in strategic planning, dispute resolution, and peacemaking circles throughout the country. As a consultant, she works for the Swinomish Department of Environmental Protection on the Climate Resiliency Project and currently serves on their Protect Mother Earth Subcommittee, and on the Higher Education Advisory Committee. Shelly also consults with the non-profit Mother Nation to support their statewide tribal Cultural Healing Services Program. Her team helped to develop and provide leadership to the Lummi CEDAR Project - Organized Generations Healthy Lifestyles Program. She also developed a "place-based" curriculum on the history and culture of the Swinomish peoples and taught a series of cultural sovereignty courses for the Northwest Indian College - Native Studies Leadership Program. Shelly continues to teach and lecture throughout the country.

Shelly Vendiola served as a board president for the national Indigenous Women's Network and was the Campaign Director for the international Indigenous Environmental Network. Shelly received several years of formal training from the Indian Dispute Resolution Services, Inc. and the SF Community Boards Program. She has an M.Ed. in Higher Education and practices Indigenous pedagogy and Indigenous research methodology within all aspects of her work. Shelly practices Qi gong daily for balance, energy, and resiliency. Her motto is, "There is nothing permanent in the world but change, the key is how we flow with it!"

Abigail Echo-Hawk, Pawnee

Abigail Echo-Hawk, MA, is an enrolled member of the Kitkehahki band of the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma and a member of the Upper Athabascan people of Mentasta Village, Alaska. She was born in the heart of Alaska where she was raised in the traditional values of giving, respect for all, and love.

Abigail is the Executive Vice President of Seattle Indian Health Board (SIHB) and the Director of their data and research division, Urban Indian Health Institute (UIHI). She joined SIHB and UIHI in 2016 and has transformed the work they are doing. Her work has focused on decolonizing data and ensuring urban Native people are represented in public health reporting.

Abigail has led the way in bringing the issue of Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls (MMIWG) to the forefront, leading directly to federal, state and local legislation working to protect Native women.

Since the COVID-19 pandemic began, Abigail’s voice has been front and center on a national level, ensuring that the urban Native community is represented in data collection. When SIHB requested PPE to help protect staff from COVID-19, they received body bags in response to the request. Abigail brought that issue into the national spotlight and highlighted the inequities that the Native community was experiencing in response to the epidemic.

SIHB has been a leader in the COVID response directly because of Abigail’s leadership and vision alongside the CEO, Esther Lucero. She serves on numerous committees locally and nationally including Best Starts for Kids Board, March of Dimes Health Equity Workgroup, Tribal Collaboration Working Group with the NIH All of Us Research Program, Advisory Committee for Health Equity Research at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and many more.

Above all of her professional work, she says her greatest accomplishment is her place within her extended family. She is a wife, a mother, an auntie, a daughter, a granddaughter, a friend and a community member. Abigail strives to serve them with love and to be a small part of ensuring a great future for the next generations.