WOODLAND HILLS : Gifts Solicited for Sioux Reservations

The expressions on the faces of the children in the photograph range from awe to delight to outright disbelief at the strange sight they are witnessing. The children, who live on the Oglala Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota, are watching television for the first time.

Lee Shapiro, an animal science professor at Pierce College, uses the photo--taken in the late 1980s--to illustrate a point he says many Americans fail to grasp: that, in this modern age, thousands of Native American children living on remote, isolated reservations are suffering from severe poverty.

“Take a simple thing like a toothbrush, something we take for granted,” said Shapiro, “They don’t even have them there.”

Shapiro, who is part Lakota Sioux, is organizing a drive to collect Christmas gifts to give to children on reservations. The effort is one of several collection drives conducted throughout the region under the direction of the Irvine-based Red Cloud American Indian Society, which hopes to distribute 7,500 gifts to children on reservations.

Shapiro says he hopes to collect gifts for 440 children. As of Wednesday, he said, he still needed 135 gifts.

Because of the frigid weather in the Northern Plains this time of year, the children are in dire need of such items as winter jackets and boots, said Shapiro. Toys and other gifts will also help.

“We are just collectively trying to bring a little joy into the lives of the children who are gripped with poverty and despair,” said Phillip Stevens, president of the Red Cloud American Indian Society. “This is an especially difficult time of year for these people.”

The organization, Stevens said, will distribute the gifts onto the Oglala, Rosebud, Cheyenne River, Standing Rock, and Fort Peck Sioux Indian reservations.

Without the donations, Stevens said, the children would receive no Christmas gifts at all, he said.

Donors can bring new toys and other gifts appropriate for youngsters between 5 and 17 years old to the Agricultural Science Building office at 6201 Winnetka Ave. in Woodland Hills, between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m. Monday through Thursday, Shapiro said. They can also be dropped off between 6 to 9 p.m. on Tuesdays.

The gifts can be donated until Nov. 23, he said. For further information call the school at (818) 347-0551.