Community's youngest members to be honored May 30

Julie Severn

5/15/2002 12:00:00 AM

The Ninth Annual Spring Baby Celebration will take place at the Elijah Elk Cultural Center on May 30 from 6 to 8 p.m.

The event will include a variety of special activities that celebrate the vitality of youth and family.

"This is a ceremony to honor the beauty of life and to ask the Creator to provide good things for the newborn and unborn children, as well as their mothers," said Seventh Generation Program Coordinator Beaver Pelcher.

Infants to three-year-old children will be honored in a traditional opening ceremony featuring guest drum High Spirit.

Newborns will receive quilts from Saginaw Chippewa Tribal member Sandy Smith. This is a tradition for Smith, who has been giving her handmade items, including blankets and dolls, to young mothers around the world for over 20 years.

"As we acknowledge our roles as mothers, fathers, aunties and uncles, we must continue to acknowledge the whole community as a family," said Pelcher.

Guest speakers Lance Teeple, director of the Bay Mills Culture Center, and wife Tonya are practitioners of traditional Native parenting. They will share their views on implementing cultural values in the modern family.

Besides a feast, there will be giveaways, games, and an inflatable obstacle course for the youth.

The event is sponsored by Behavioral Health, Seventh Generation, Healthy Start and Ngodewaangiziwin programs.