Learn & Serve
Schedule your volunteer trip to Pine Ridge today
Building Relationships with the Oglala Lakota People
Support Oglala Lakota Artisans
Browse locally made arts and crafts starting at $12
Help Us Grow Our Future at Feather II
A new, intentionally designed facility offers dynamic opportunities to further develop our programs
Building a Better Today with the Oglala Lakota Nation
Re-Member is an independent, non-profit organization working with the Oglala Lakota Nation on the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota. We improve the quality of life for those who live here, and provide meaningful opportunities to serve and learn for those who volunteer and support our work.
Re-Member’s efforts are funded by private donations, and guided by the aspirations of tribal members who are generous with their wisdom as cultural speakers, community leaders, and builders of understanding.
At Re-Member, we are builders.
We build beds for children who do not have one. We build outhouses for those without functional plumbing. We build knowledge and support self-sufficiency in our community gardens. We build economy with our support of local native-owned business. We build hope for a better tomorrow, by focusing on the promise and possibility of what can be.
Founded in 1998, Re-Member is among the longest serving non-profit organizations on Pine Ridge and is not affiliated with any religious, political, or policy group.
“Re-Member takes its name from the ancient definition, ‘to put back that which is broken; to re-member.’ Conditions on Pine Ridge represent a part of our world that is broken, a part that we seek to put back together.”
—Keith Titus, Re-Member Co-Founder
Responding to Immediate Needs
Conditions exist here that should not exist in the middle of the wealthiest country on earth. Our volunteers and other visitors to Pine Ridge are often shocked by what they see.
We believe we can best fulfill our mission of improving reservation life by bringing together volunteers, organizations, and governmental entities both on Pine Ridge and across the nation to help alleviate the most pressing immediate needs of the Oglala Lakota people.
We build outhouses for those without indoor plumbing and ramps for the disabled, beds for people sleeping on floors and skirts for trailers susceptible to South Dakota’s unpredictable weather. We grow fresh produce each summer in our community gardens, and distribute firewood every winter to those in need.
“Native American history is American history. Only by acknowledging the past can we work toward a future that we're all proud to embrace.”
—Deb Haaland, Secretary of the Interior
The Realities of Life on the Pine Ridge Reservation
The officially reported average life expectancy on Pine Ridge is 67 years, the lowest in the United States. Other statistics, attributed to the Pine Ridge hospital, cite an average life expectancy for men of just 47 years. Women fare slightly better, with an average life expectancy of 55 years.
Of the 3,143 counties in the United States, Oglala Lakota County, contained entirely within the boundaries of the Pine Ridge Reservation, has the lowest per capita income ($8,768). The community of Allen, South Dakota, has been called the poorest town in the U.S. by a variety of sources.
The unemployment rate on Pine Ridge hovers between 70 and 90 percent. The poverty rate is estimated to exceed 80 percent. The high school dropout rate is over 70 percent. Infant mortality is 300 percent higher than the U.S. average, teen suicide 150 percent higher. Half of adults over 40 suffer from diabetes. Some 85 percent of families are affected by alcoholism.
“Responding to immediate needs, we provide resources that improve the quality of life for members of the Oglala Lakota Nation, and create meaningful opportunities to build understanding for our volunteers.”
—Re-Member Mission Statement
Offering Hands and Hearts to the People of Pine Ridge
Each year, from March through October, Re-Member brings as many as 1,200 volunteers of all ages and backgrounds from across the United States and around the globe to offer their hands and hearts to the people of the Pine Ridge Reservation during week-long service-learning trips with a strong emphasis on cultural immersion. Working with our staff, volunteers complete various projects across the reservation, while learning about the culture and history of the Lakota people.
On the reservation, volunteers live in bunkhouses at Re-Member headquarters and spend three days working to make daily life better for residents and two days learning about the Oglala Lakota people through presentations by Native speakers, site visits, interaction, music and community events. Through cultural immersion, we continue to develop a growing circle of advocates standing in solidarity with the people of Pine Ridge.
The projects volunteers work on are intended to improve living conditions for families on the reservation, mainly by helping meet the basic need for adequate shelter. Re-Member volunteers build bunk beds for kids, sturdy outhouses, wooden access stairs and wheelchair ramps. They also install skirting to keep mobile homes warmer in winter and cooler in summer and, in the fall, cut, split, and deliver firewood.
