Graton Rancheria program for needy families focuses on youth, education

More than a dozen children gathered on a recent Tuesday afternoon in a modest organic garden off Wilfred Avenue near the Graton Resort and Casino, where they attended to rows of chard, arugula and other newly planted vegetables.

They ran excitedly about with a handful of green watering cans and were even encouraged to sample the crop, although community gardener Oscar Lucario warned them to “be gentle with the babies.”

The children, who ranged from third-graders to sixth-graders, could see firsthand why care was necessary. Many of the plants had been ravaged by beetles not long after they were planted, and some of the remaining rows were covered in netting to defend against future devastation.

It was an interactive day for the after-school program offered by the Federated Indians of Graton Rancheria, which owns the nearby casino in Rohnert Park. As the school year progresses and the garden grows, the children will continue to visit the space and learn about organic farming - part of a broader mission of the tribe to instill a sense of environmental responsibility among its members and other American Indians.

“Once you get a commitment and you establish that relationship between your food and you, it’s a lifelong journey,” Lucario said of the garden.

The activity was also part of an ambitious - and growing - endeavor from the tribe.

Using federal and state funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program, the Graton Rancheria, like other tribes, has for years offered a range of services whose goals include improving education, breaking generational poverty, making tribal families healthy and self-sufficient and providing financial aid.

To accomplish all that, the TANF program provides cash assistance for up to 60 months to those living 150 percent below the poverty level, as well as job training, the after-school program and more. The services are available to Graton Rancheria members and members of other nearby tribes.

The program has recently focused more on preventative and youth-oriented services, including the expansion of its summer camp and after-school programs, said Scott Boyle, director of the Tribal TANF of Sonoma and Marin, the Graton program’s formal name.

“This is the two-generation approach,” Boyle said. “You’re focusing on the adults, with getting them into employment, but the tribe, they have really kind of taken an approach of, let’s work with the children so they don’t wind up being on assistance when they become adults.”

To date this year, 973 people have received preventative and youth services through the program, up from 252 in 2011, Boyle said.

At the same time, the number of families receiving some form of financial assistance from the tribal program has declined to 104 families so far this year, down from 131 families in 2011, according to Boyle.

An improving economy may be partly responsible, but the diverging trend between families getting monetary help and those using preventative services shows that “something’s working,” Boyle said.

The Graton program receives about $3 million a year in annual federal and state funds for the program, according to Boyle.

Graton tribal Chairman Greg Sarris said he was attracted to the TANF opportunity years ago because he could tell it would help the tribe meet its mission.

“It could be an opportunity for us to begin to be citizens who are empowered, engaged individuals, not just in our tribe but in the larger community, advocating for our tribe and our values,” Sarris recalled in a recent interview. “And it had the potential of serving not just our tribe but all Indians. So it would be a win-win-win for me.”

Angel Flores, 27, has benefited from the tribal TANF program in numerous ways. She said the program paid for her 7-year-old son’s tutoring and the program’s summer camp took both of her children on field trips she would not have been able to afford.

The tribal program also helped Flores personally, giving her the financial support she needed to finish her degree at Sonoma State University when she ran out of financial aid funds and was living in a homeless shelter with her children.

“I withdrew from the semester and I wasn’t sure if I was even going to go back, because I was only working part-time,” Flores said.

“It was like, why am I going to school working part-time and I’m sitting here homeless with my kids? I should just go and work full-time and not worry about that.”

But because of the help she received through the tribe, Flores did not drop out. She moved into her own house, graduated in May and now works full-time as a nutrition assistant for the Sonoma County Indian Health Project.

The academic aspects of TANF are of great importance to Sarris, who believes education is crucial to breaking the cycle of poverty.

“We all live in a giant house. It’s got tons of doors. Without education, you might have a key to one or two doors. With education, you get a key to all the doors,” Sarris said. “Instead of living a life with one or two doors, which we’ve gotten used to, now we can say, ‘No, I don’t want to go in the door that says mechanic or field worker or unemployed, I want to go in the door that says doctor, lawyer or teacher,’ or something like that. And that’s what TANF is doing.”

Sarris said TANF has contributed directly to a generational shift in mindset among tribal members. The expectation that youth will go to college has taken root in the tribe - which he said was not the case about 20 years ago.

Moving forward, Sarris said, the tribe might need to build a new facility or rent a larger space than the offices it currently uses on Redwood Drive in Rohnert Park.

“We are bursting at the seams, because our learning labs, our after-school labs, all these programs that we have for our kids after school - we have nowhere to put them anymore,” Sarris said.