Cherokee Community Celebration Day 2014

In May 2014, The Cherokee Preservation Foundation hosted the annual Community Celebration Day, which is an event for members of the Cherokee community to see the various projects funded by the CPF throughout the year and gives grantees the opportunity to showcase what they have been and are doing with granted funds and to see what other grantees are doing in their communities. Wild South has been a part of this annual celebration for years, and we ALWAYS look forward to it.

This year, we were treated to the best meal you ever had, prepared by the North American Indian Women’s Association (NAIWA) and innovative projects from colleagues like the Land Trust for the Little Tennessee’ land resource management, the NC Arboretum Germplasm Repository which is studying and preserving the native Sochan plant, and Cherokee High School Revitalization of Traditional Cherokee Artisan Resources (RTCAR) classes.

Our Cultural Heritage Director, Lamar Marshall, spoke to visitors about his extensive work collecting over 50,000 unique historical cultural documents, protection of cultural trails and sites on public lands, and providing full access to Cherokee documents that had been held in private or inaccessible collections. Paige Tester, Wild South’s  new Cultural Heritage staff, was on hand to celebrate as well. Paige is working extensively on making these collected documents fully available and searchable for public use. We are proud to continue this work and are incredibly grateful to work with such outstanding partners like the Cherokee Preservation Foundation, The Community Foundation of Western NC, the Eastern Band of Cherokee Indians, The Tribal  Historic Preservation Office and more!