A Veterans Day luncheon was held Tuesday in Crow Agency, a celebration for those who fought for them, according to organizers.
"It's very fulfilling for me as a younger veteran in serving the older ones that have served before me. Traditionally as Crows, we've always celebrated our warriors, and for me, it's important. and I really enjoy doing that for our people," said Clisa Jefferson, a US Navy veteran and tribal member who helped put on the luncheon.
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"Everybody needs to come back to doing community events, hosting stuff like this, embracing the veterans for everything they have done. It just brings the community back together," said Chaz Bends, Crow Tribe's bison manager.
Bends plays a big role in distributing both bison and elk meat across the reservation, some of which was served at the luncheon.
With a recent lapse in SNAP benefits, he says distributing meat has helped to keep families fed.
"I have people put their names down and right across from their names, I got a family size to give us an idea of how many people we are actually feeding during those distributions. So, every time we do a distribution, it's 200 to 300 people that we're feeding," Bends said.
The bison herd got started on the reservation back in the 1930s, though its numbers dropped in recent decades. Bends says he has taken steps to grow the herd back to over 1,000 head to continue to keep the tribe fed for generations.
"We were just barely over 300 head on the mountain. That's our goal right now, to get those numbers back up to a thousand or 1,500 even. We have the range to do it. Once we get our numbers up that high, we will just keep going every month with these distributions. We want to get the meat into those school programs, get everyone healthy again. Get the herd healthy, get the people healthy, that's the plan," said Bends.
Bends says he is working on an upcoming distribution in Pryor later this month.
