Like the song says, “one is the loneliest number that you’ll ever do” if you or your organization try to address a pressing issue in your community by yourself. The chances are pretty good though that you really aren’t alone and that others of like mind are out there. If only you connect with them, the solution you devise is likely to be more than you ever dreamed possible. Here’s how three groups have converged on a single path and are building a much needed program for the members of the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians (EBCI). 
The Cherokee Center
The Western Carolina University-Cherokee Center was established approximately 25 years ago to help young people of the EBCI get a start on college careers. They were able to take beginning college courses from Western Carolina University instructors on the Qualla Boundary, the Cherokee reservation, before moving to the main campus at Cullowhee to finish their degrees. Over the years, as more young people acquired their own transportation and enrolled at the Cullowhee campus in their freshman year, attendance at the Cherokee Center dwindled considerably. When Roseanna Belt became director of the center in 2001, she envisioned a new purpose to revitalize the Cherokee Center’s contribution to the Cherokee community.
Belt is an enrolled member of the EBCI who returned to the Qualla Boundary in 1983 after 25 years away, including time spent earning a master’s degree in Counseling and Consulting Psychology from the Harvard Graduate School of Education. She began to see that the annual per capita payment that each enrolled EBCI member started receiving several years ago as a result of gaming revenues generated by the EBCI was creating special issues for the tribe’s young people. The per capita payment, which varies depending on the tribe’s revenues from gaming and has been in the neighborhood of $6,000 annually per member recently, is held in trust for young people until they graduate from high school and reach their 18th birthday. It is very tempting for them to withdraw their funds at this time. Many of these young men and women have not learned financial management skills. As a result, many have spent their trust funds very quickly on cars and other items young people crave, only to find belatedly they do not qualify for financial aid for college. The federal government views the single trust payout as a sizable annual income.
Belt talked with many people in the EBCI who work with young people and came to the conclusion that the Cherokee Center should develop a financial education program, targeted at children as young as nine, so they can learn financial management skills long before their 18th birthday. At the suggestion of Dr. Oak Winters, Dean of Continuing Education and Summer School at WCU, she submitted a grant application to the Cherokee Preservation Foundation for funds that would help the Cherokee Center create a plan for the program.
The North Carolina Cooperative Extension Service (NCCES)
As it is in many North Carolina communities, the NCCES is an important part of the Qualla Boundary and other communities on EBCI tribal lands. The NCCES is an educational organization that has support from the state’s two land grant universities, North Carolina State University and North Carolina A&T State University. It helps put research-based knowledge to work for economic prosperity, environmental stewardship and improved quality of life. Financial education traditionally has been one of the services it provides.
Heather James, 4-H Family Consumer Education Agent for the NCCES, was also taking note of the per capita payment related problems the young people of the EBCI were having, and she began to think about creating a financial education program for 12- to 16-year-olds that would teach personal financial and entrepreneurial skills. She, too, applied for a Cherokee Preservation Foundation planning grant, unaware of Roseanna Belt’s intentions because the two had never met nor heard of each other’s work.
Consumer Credit Counseling Service of Western North Carolina (CCCS)
For more than 25 years, the CCCS has been helping people in WNC manage money and credit better through free, professional money management counseling and debt repayment programs. In 2000, after recognizing that many EBCI members were driving to Asheville to get help from its staff members, CCCS began providing one-on-one counseling services on the Qualla Boundary several times per month, thanks to a grant from the Community Foundation of Western North Carolina. In 2002, wanting to have a wider impact on the EBCI community by offering large financial education workshops in addition to its one-on-one counseling services, Celeste Collins, executive director of CCCS, applied to the Cherokee Preservation Foundation for a grant. Not being part of daily life at the Qualla Boundary, CCCS was not familiar with the Cherokee Center or the North Carolina Cooperative Extensive Service.
The Foundation Plays Matchmaker
With its bird’s eye view, the Cherokee Preservation Foundation quickly saw three organizations with similar visions, each staffed by very good people. The only problem was that they were completely unaware of each other! The Foundation told all three it would award the sought-after grants to each organization, provided that the Cherokee Center, the North Carolina Extension Service, and Consumer Credit Counseling Service of WNC all worked together to create a single collaborative effort.
What happened next was more than Belt, James or Collins could have imagined. With facilitation help from WCU’s Dean Winters, they shared needs assessments they had done, brainstormed about the curricula they could offer, began to research resource material, and together, they interviewed and hired the staff for the program that they named Qualla Financial Freedom. Collectively, their grants are funding the first-year salaries of the program director (June Sterling) and a part-time staff person (Michael Wilnoty), curriculum consulting assistance from Dr. Grace Allen of WCU’s School of Business, and program creation costs. In several months, they will be ready to test Qualla Financial Freedom on a pilot group of young people through an after-school program, and then they will adjust the program as necessary before taking it to a broad EBCI population.
“We’ve put together one comprehensive program instead of three redundant ones,” said Heather James of the NCCES. “We’re working together and doing the job right.”
“For my CCCS colleagues and me, it’s been wonderful to work with Roseanna, Heather, and June who are part of the Qualla Boundary community every day,” said Celeste Collins. “Our strong point is adult education and theirs is working with young people. The Qualla Financial Freedom partnership will provide EBCI members with local opportunities to learn the money and credit management skills that ensure a solid financial future and prevent crisis situations.”
“Qualla Financial Freedom is a wonderful collaborative effort,” said Roseanna Belt of the Cherokee Center. “We’re going full speed ahead now to design the program and market it, and the program is going to make a big difference for kids and parents on the Qualla Boundary.”
This is how three stories became one great one. As you consider how to solve the community problem you are particularly passionate about, find out who shares your desire and vision BEFORE you approach the Cherokee Preservation Foundation. It will make your grant application—and your efforts—so much stronger.
To learn more about Qualla Financial Freedom, visit http://groups.yahoo.com/group/walkthepath on the Web.
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