‘Didn't have a pillow': the program kitting out foster students starting college
Like many first-year students, Green, who is headed into her sophomore year and plans to become a plastic surgeon, was excited about her future adventures. But coming up through the foster system in California, she didn't know anyone who had gone to college. While she felt ready for her classes, life as a college student was mostly mysterious except for what she'd seen online.
That's where Dec My Dorm stepped in. The program works with more than 140 foster youth headed to college, hosting an annual event in July to kit out each student with sheet sets, pillows, a shower caddy and connections to other people in the same situation.
Green took part in the summer of 2024, leaving with several duffel bags filled with the things she needed, including many items she didn't know she would need, like dish soap.
'I was expecting bed stuff and towels,' Green said. 'I wasn't expecting them to give me period products and school supplies. They were giving out school merch and stepping stools and toolboxes. They really went above and beyond.'
The program started in 2018 when Jill Franklin, a program manager of the Independent Living Program for the department of children and family services in Los Angeles county, met a student who came from the foster system. The young woman described arriving at the University of California at Berkeley with just a trash bag, not knowing that dorm rooms are spartan affairs with a desk, chair, bed with an oddly sized mattress – and that's it.
'She didn't have a pillow or a sheet or a towel, and everybody else was there with their parents and their bags of stuff,' Franklin said. 'At the time, I was editing college essays and I realized, we never ever thought about that first day.'
Franklin started with a small Amazon wishlist and a handful of students. It was particularly important that the kids were involved in the process as much as possible, she said, because they were used to living in spaces that were not their own.
'You might have a 17-year-old who's on the football team and says: 'I don't want Minnie Mouse sheets,' but oh well, that's what it is, and they probably aren't going to be there for very long and it's not their bedroom,' said Franklin. 'It was very important that they pick their own bedding, their own towels and their own blankets, so that when they walk in that room, or someone else walks in that room, it says: 'This is who I am.''
In 2022, she met Phyllis Shinbane, who had retired as director of operations from Connecting a Caring Community, a non-profit organization based in Calabasas, California. Like many people, Shinbane had been unaware that foster youth often have nothing they can bring with them to college, but realized this was a need she could help fill.
Along with CCC's executive director, Lisa Kodimer, and the Dec My Dorm co-chair Allison Weiss, they raised more than $40,000 in donations and connected with sponsors and volunteers to help 142 students in 2025.
'It's just leveling the playing field,' said Shinbane, who hopes to expand the program to other states. 'It's just putting them in a room where they're equal, where they're not different, where their past doesn't define them, that they are the same as every other college student that came from a supportive, structured, safe home.'
Eight per cent to 11% of people in foster care obtain a bachelor's degree, said Sarah Wasch, associate director of the Field Center for Children's Policy, Practice & Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Although most people in foster care can remain in the system until they are at least 21 years old, many foster parents don't have the funds to furnish a dorm room.
'There's a disconnect around who is responsible to oversee that transition,' Wasch said. 'For youth in foster care, it's very unclear if it's the foster family's responsibility, the case manager's, the court's or the legal guardian's.'
While some states have programs addressing foster care and higher education, efforts remain piecemeal and there are plenty of gaps to fill, like dorm room needs and storage over summers, she said. Most colleges have support systems specifically aimed at supporting students who come from the foster system, like the Guardian Scholars program in California. Those focus mainly on financial support for tuition and meals, and advising for classes, not for student life.
At one point, legislation was introduced to create a federal center that would coordinate state efforts, but it did not pass, Wasch said.
Kelisha Williams, a foster student from Kentucky who graduated from Harvard University last spring, said she wished there had been a program like Dec My Dorm when she was going to school. Although Harvard provided a list of dorm room essentials, she watched a lot of YouTube videos to figure out what she would need to fit in and worked to save the money.
She emphasized that it's not just about having the essentials, like a shower caddy and a bar of soap. Not having those things could make foster students feel like they don't belong.
'I knew that was going to be a big hurdle, and I did not want anyone to know that I was not like them, or that I didn't deserve to be there,' Williams, 22, said. 'So I kind of just made sure that I worked the summer before to have everything that I needed, even, you know, if it was kind of plush objects like posters and things like that.'
Shinbane said that many volunteers were enthusiastic about going with students to set up their dorm rooms, if desired, but there were legal concerns about privacy. The organization offers other resources, like free eye-screening and glasses, and providing students with a resource folder with QR codes linking students to food assistance, clothing programs and campus support.
They invite former participants to come meet the new class headed to college, so they can offer advice and support.
'This program is like a living, breathing thing,' Shinbane said. 'It evolves every year, and our goal is to provide them with services and resources to help ensure their success.'
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The Guardian
an hour ago
- The Guardian
‘I've been stupid and I miss you': the family members who buried the hatchet after years of silence
'What happened?' Scott, 82, asked Bruce, 78, when his younger brother picked up the phone and called him after a 15-year estrangement. 'I grew up,' Bruce said. 'I've been stupid and I really miss you.' The brothers had missed a decade and a half of each other's birthdays, milestones and memories made, but here they were, talking again as though no time had passed. A quarter of the adult population describe themselves as estranged from a relative; 10% from a parent and 8% from a sibling, according to research by Karl Pillemer, professor of human development at Cornell University and author of Fault Lines: Fractured Families and How to Mend Them. But when decades pass and rifts remain unhealed, what drives family members such as Scott and Bruce – or, rather more famously, the Gallagher brothers – to repair their ruptured relationships? As children, in San Fernando valley, California, Scott and Bruce were close. 'He was protective and a great storyteller,' Bruce says. 'We'd go to the movies together and I remember hiding behind a seat at the cinema watching The Blob and waiting for Scott to tell me when to come out. We got along pretty well.' Scott had dyslexia and struggled at school, gaining less affection from their unemotional parents as a result. Bruce noticed: 'He was undervalued. Our parents never acknowledged or celebrated his achievements.' As they entered teenage years, these differences began to come between them. 'We started to have issues when I began having my own opinions,' says Bruce, now living in Santa Fe. 'I was and still am a know-it-all. I was thin-skinned and not very self-aware.' Bruce gained a PhD and worked as a substitute teacher near Berkeley, California, while Scott became a screenwriter, got married, brought up two daughters and moved to Nevada City. The brothers met up a couple of times a year but Bruce remembers, 'He would always say extremely hurtful things.' The comments festered until, during one trip in 2005, when the pair were around 60, Bruce 'blew up'. 'I'd bought us all seafood,' he remembers. 'At the end of dinner Scott said, 'This kitchen was clean, now it's dirty – you should clean it up.' It could have been anything but feeling belittled in front of my then girlfriend, it was egregious to me.' So he cut ties. Their late father had also been a screenwriter and when Scott sent a cheque containing his regular half of residuals, Bruce returned it: 'I didn't want any more connection. It was too painful.' 'He never said he had a problem with me but it was clear,' Scott remembers. 'I wasn't deeply wounded. I didn't have time to dwell on what was going on with him. I had to work and feed the family.' He imagined they would come back together someday and wondered, from time to time, if his brother was well. Bruce was 'just glad to be out of the line of fire. I don't remember missing him.' But in 2020, Bruce felt ready for change. Some years earlier he had turned down a suggestion from Scott's daughter that the pair reconnect but, with the world in lockdown, he began thinking about his relationships. 'I realised I'd been too judgmental. I'd never walked a mile in Scott's shoes. He was saying cruel things to me because I was being an ass. I was the jerk in this story.' Bruce sought advice from a psychotherapist friend about how to reconcile, then picked up the phone. When Scott heard his voice again, he remembers, 'We picked up exactly where we left off. There was no animosity. It was guilt free. We haven't had a harsh word since.' They called each other every fortnight. 'We had a hard time hanging up,' Bruce says. Six months later, he went out to visit and has done several times since. 'We've spoken a lot about our parents, who were kind and bright but not loving,' Scott says. 'Neither of us remember being kissed or hugged. Talking about it has allowed us to rediscover each other and ourselves.' Their time apart brought unexpected positives: 'We have realised we're similar in many ways. We think the same and have many of the same expressions. When we belly up to the bar together, you'd know we're brothers,' Bruce says. He feels vastly happier: 'I don't feel I lost anything. In fact, it's brought us closer than ever.' Scott agrees: 'It's all been a gain.' PIllemer says Bruce and Scott's story is typical. 'Common to most estrangements is a 'volcanic event' where pressure has built up to a single trigger, the capstone in a history of conflict or communication problems. Understanding what it signifies helps figure things out.' Those who reconcile go through a similar process, he adds. 'There has usually been some self-exploration. Often, they come to realise they played a part in the rift.' A contemplation phase follows: 'I call it anticipatory regret. They miss the person and start to think, if they don't do this, will it be too late?' For Oliver, 62, a family bereavement made him reassess the 28 years he had spent apart from his twin brother Henry (not their real names). 'I remember thinking: what if he suddenly died and I never had the chance to talk to him? I picked up the phone and counted down: 10, nine, eight, seven … thinking: shall I do it?' The two were nonidentical and had always been different: 'As twins, there's a presumption that you're cut from the same cloth. But he had his friends and interests, and I had mine. He was intellectual and introverted, and I was the opposite, more colourful.' By their teenage years, Oliver says, 'We were just two brothers living in the same house. There was a distance between us. It was hard to connect.' They moved to different cities and, at 21, Oliver emigrated. 'Whenever I came back, I would suggest we meet. I felt it was always met with an excuse.' When Henry married, Oliver says, 'I didn't want or expect to be his best man and he didn't ask. I just felt like a guest.' They headed further in different directions, speaking every few months until the early 90s when, on another trip home, Oliver asked Henry to dinner and found his excuse too painful: 'It was always me initiating things; he didn't once pick up the phone and ask how I was. Rejection is never easy but with family it hits harder.' Despondent, he thought, 'OK, I've tried.' In the almost three decades that followed, no one in the family addressed the twins' alienation: 'My parents knew but they didn't say anything; I kind of wish they had.' Oliver says he wanted to connect many times, 'but thought I was setting myself up for rejection. I learned from family members he was suffering with his own problems. There were things I wished I could share.' When, in 2009, their sister's husband died from cancer, Oliver returned to the UK for the funeral. The brothers found themselves in the same room again. 'I saw him walking up to the house. I thought: this is going to be uncomfortable for everyone.' They didn't speak but Oliver recalls, 'His wife asked, 'Do you think you'd consider calling him? I think he'd respond favourably.'' He flew home reflecting on her words and the shortness of life: 'We don't get to choose another family.' A few days later, he called Henry. 'It was like going on a first date. When we spoke I realised it's not the point to talk about what happened, why you did this or said that. I thought, no, we're going to leave that in the past; we're going to talk about the present and future.' Oliver called Henry every month: 'Part of my thought process was about accepting him for who he is and not who I want him to be. He doesn't talk about emotions whereas I'm very open. So I will pick up the phone and ask how he is because I want him as part of my life.' Henry went out to visit Oliver and now, when Oliver comes back to the UK, he stays with his brother and has got to know his niece and nephew, too. 'There's no emotion, but I have peace with that. I accept him for who he is and it's fine. We were in the womb together, we have a 62-year connection: you can't deny that.' While estrangement from siblings – or close cousins, grandparents, aunts or uncles – is upsetting, cutting off a parent or child is especially hard. 'We are less obligated to be in touch with siblings, but we are bonded to our parents,' Pillemer says. 'It is quite a big thing to say I never want to speak to you again.' That is what happened to Choi, a 45-year-old digital marketer and DJ who grew up in a God-fearing Korean immigrant family in Buenos Aires. As a boy, he feared his father. 'He was frequently physically abusive,' Choi says. 'My sister and I would count how many days he'd been quiet, then he'd snap. I felt I was living in a prison.' At 17, Choi tried to kill himself; at 18, when his father locked him out for missing a curfew, he left home. 'If I'd stayed it would have been the end of me, so I turned around, with no money and no prospects, and never said goodbye.' He was relieved to escape his father's control, but missed his mother – the two were forbidden to talk and over the next two decades saw each other only a handful of times, at Choi's sister's wedding and when he visited her, alone, at his parents' shop. 'When I went we'd have a few minutes. She'd ask a lot of questions but we couldn't have a serious talk. She would ask me to come back and apologise to my dad. I'd walk out feeling angry with her for expecting that of me.' So he stopped visiting; for 10 years, they didn't see each other at all. Then, in 2022, Choi says, 'I wanted to reconnect. My then girlfriend had cancer during the pandemic, so it was tough. When she recovered, I felt grateful and started to think about Mum and Dad.' Choi drove the four hours to his parents' home and knocked on their door. 'When Dad saw me he asked Mum, 'Who is this?'' Choi remembers. 'It was strange but not sad. I was mentally prepared for anything.' His father yelled at him, presuming he wanted money or somewhere to stay. 'When his rant ended I told him, 'I just wanted to see your face and say hello.' They invited me in and he interrogated me, but I was happy.' Choi began calling every Saturday. Conversations were 'transactional'; occasionally his father apologised for his behaviour. 'I told him I was also a bad son. I said, 'Let's not talk about the past, let's try to build a new relationship.'' But on his next visit, a few months later, his father's mood changed; he grew angry, then stopped answering his son's calls. A year later, on a Tuesday morning in February 2023, an unknown number flashed up on Choi's phone: 'It kept calling so I answered.' It was the police station in his parents' town. 'My mum was there. She'd left him and asked if I'd go to get her.' Sign up to Inside Saturday The only way to get a look behind the scenes of the Saturday magazine. Sign up to get the inside story from our top writers as well as all the must-read articles and columns, delivered to your inbox every weekend. after newsletter promotion Choi brought her to live with him. 'She cooked for us and we ate together. I got her a phone and she called family in Korea she had also been cut off from. She told me about how my father treated her and controlled everything, about his outbursts and how hard it was.' A month later, the unknown number flashed up again. 'I knew,' Choi remembers. 'He'd killed himself. 'It's hard to grieve a person like my father,' he says. But the death represented a moment of 'deep change' – one that allowed Choi to rebuild his relationship with his mother. She moved back into the family home but the pair continue to visit and speak three times a week. 'Our relationship is complex and still challenging; I want to protect her but I'm still angry about the past. She says, 'You have to let go' but it's not easy.' He admires her for leaving and, above all, 'I'm grateful to have her in my life. This is a second chance.' Reconciliation is not the right choice for everybody, Pillemer warns: 'There are situations where the relationship is dangerous or so damaging that it can be better to cut off contact.' And not everyone who attempts it gets the immediate response they had hoped for. 'The most successful strategies are where they don't give up completely and leave a door open.' When the path to reconciliation opens up, gathering information about the person from family members can be helpful. Turning up unannounced is riskier and 'not always the best approach' but for Grace, 55 (not her real name), who went 35 years without seeing or hearing from her father, it was life-changing. Grace was 10 when he had an affair and left: 'He went off to start a new life and I never saw him again. He didn't seem interested in me and we didn't have a strong connection. My mum, who was loving towards me, held a lot of animosity towards him and I felt I should hate him, but I didn't.' She remained close to relatives on his side of the family who 'went out of their way to make sure my feelings weren't hurt by mentioning him'. Their paths never crossed. It was 'a strange situation to be in' and the burden of being the girl, then woman, who didn't speak to her father was 'draining'. Grace spotted her father fleetingly 20 years later when, aged 42, she gave a reading at her grandfather's funeral. 'I expected seeing me would stimulate something in him but it didn't. I was a bit crestfallen.' Two years after that, while driving with her cousins through the town where he happened to live, one pointed to the roadside. 'There were two men chatting with newspapers,' Grace recalls. ''There's your father,' my cousin said. 'Oh yeah,' I replied, but I didn't have the faintest idea which was him. It really threw me.' Grace realised she was hungry for information about who he was and traits they shared: 'It was the elephant in the room for so long. The longer the avoidance went on, the bigger it became. I wasn't sure how I'd feel and I was also convinced Mum would see it as a betrayal.' The thought stayed with her until a couple of years later, going to a family wedding in Ireland, where her father now lived. Everyone was there but him. The next morning, without time to overthink, Grace walked to his house and sat on the doorstep: 'I thought, if I go away now, I'll never come back.' She didn't have to wait long. When he returned, he didn't recognise her at first. 'Then he said, 'You'd better come in. Do you want a cup of tea?'' They sat at the kitchen table. 'It felt surreal. I knew that if we were to have a relationship, uncomfortable topics were not to be broached. We talked about baking, feeding the birds, growing vegetables and his English pension. He asked if my mother was alive and I said, 'Yes, she's fantastic.' I felt I had to fight her corner. That's the only time we approached anything sensitive.' Overwhelmingly, the feeling was of relief. 'I needed to get rid of the feeling that part of myself was somehow amputated,' Grace says. 'As I was leaving, he hugged me and cried a little. That felt satisfying.' They settled into a pattern of Christmas cards, birthday phone calls and visits once or twice a year, always lasting an hour. She has thought a lot about why she sat on her father's doorstep that day. 'A lot of things in my life had come about through the actions or wishes of others,' she says. 'I was no longer willing to be deprived of knowing my own father because of what that might mean to them: the possibility of hurting my mother, being rejected by my father or drawing relatives' disapproval. And I couldn't hold anyone else responsible for the rift when I was the only one capable of taking the necessary step.' She wishes she had done it sooner: 'I've had problems over the years dealing with crap from my childhood. Knowing he was just a normal person and I wasn't insufficient in some way could have helped.' Her father is in his 80s now and Grace says, 'It's given me the opportunity, late in the day, to be his daughter. If he had died and I had never regained contact with him, that loss would have been awful.' For some, reconciliation does wait until the end of life. Pillimer has found that, in cases of deep, unresolved harm, these moments can have negative consequences. 'But when sincere and mutually desired, they can bring emotional closure, reduce regret and ease the grieving process for the one left behind.' It was a deathbed conversation with her own father that eventually delivered closure for Lynne, a 71-year-old lawyer based in Independence, Missouri, after the pair spent more than a decade estranged during her teens and early 20s. She was 36 when he died, aged 59, but she says, 'It was not until my dad was dying that we talked about the years spent apart.' Lynne's parents divorced when she was eight and her father moved out. 'I remember seeing him regularly at first,' she says. 'Then, when I was 13, my mother remarried, to a difficult man with several children of his own. We all moved in together. My father had problems paying child support for me, my brother and sister, so my stepfather forbade him from seeing us.' She felt her father's absence: 'Things weren't good at home. I remember thinking I just want a boyfriend to hold me when I cry. When I was older, I realised it was my father I'd wanted. In my teens, my mother made an offhand comment – 'It's good your dad's not around, it makes it easier' – and I thought: you are so wrong.' Her mother's new marriage lasted four years but the schism with her dad continued. In her late teens, Lynne turned down an offer, via a friend, to meet him. 'I was still somewhat bitter,' she says. When he had a heart attack soon after, she didn't visit: 'I feel bad now but I was resentful that he hadn't fought harder to be in my life.' They did see each other when she got married, aged 21. 'I didn't want to get married without him there, so I invited him as a guest. He didn't walk me down the aisle but we spoke, he gave me a gift and we hugged.' Three years later, she made contact again, impulsively, on Father's Day: 'I saw a card and sent it. I'd never done that before and don't remember what prompted me.' That December, he called on her birthday. Then they arranged dinner with her siblings. 'It felt warm and accepting, but we didn't talk about what had happened.' Her dad had remarried, meaning Lynne now had a half-brother, and she and her father grew close again. She, her husband and son spent Christmases in Florida, where her dad lived. He visited them, too. 'I discovered my father was very intelligent and his sense of humour was a little bit off, just like mine.' She often imagined what it had been like for him during their years apart but received answers only in his final days. He suffered a pulmonary embolism and Lynne and her siblings travelled to upstate New York, where he had moved, to be by his bedside. 'They told us he had 10 days to live,' she remembers. 'We laughed a lot and talked. He apologised for his absences. He told me the divorce had been his fault, he'd cheated, that he was proud of me for becoming a lawyer, and how much he loved me and regretted what had happened. I was sad he was dying but this felt like the best thing to come out of those circumstances. It provided a lot of closure. 'Some relationships never heal, and some people are despicable, but that was not my situation,' she adds. 'I've always thought those who hold grudges or stay resentful harm themselves most. It's so much more freeing and life-affirming to forgive.' In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123, or email jo@ or jo@ In the US, you can call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline on 988, chat on or text HOME to 741741 to connect with a crisis counselor. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at
Daily Mail
7 hours ago
- Daily Mail
From teen mom to raising a billionaire: How Jacklyn Bezos' selfless sacrifices over the years secured son Jeff's Amazon success
Behind every great man is a great woman, so the saying goes. And in Jeff Bezos ' case that woman was his mother Jacklyn Bezos, who died peacefully at her home this week at the age of 78. Today, her son is one of the world's wealthiest men, but his beginnings were a lot more humble. It is largely thanks to the tireless sacrifice of his mother that he is able to sit atop his Amazon empire. It is a sentiment not lost on the billionaire CEO, who acknowledged Jacklyn's monumental place in his life in an emotional post announcing her death. 'After a long fight with Lewy Body Dementia, she passed away today, surrounded by so many of us who loved her — her kids, grandkids, and my dad,' Jeff wrote. 'I know she felt our love in those final moments. We were all so lucky to be in her life. I hold her safe in my heart forever.' While it may have been Bezos' luck to have her as a mother, it was Jacklyn's grit and belief in her son which turned her fortunes around from struggling teen mom to one of the first investors in one of the biggest companies in the world. Jacklyn was born in Washington, DC, and grew up in Albuquerque, New Mexico, where, as a high school student, she met Jeff's biological father, Ted Jorgensen, according to the Bezos Scholars Program. She gave birth to the Amazon founder at 17 years old shortly after marrying Jorgensen, but the two divorced shortly after. 'My mom, Jackie, had me when she was a 17-year-old high school student in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Being pregnant in high school was not popular in Albuquerque in 1964. It was difficult for her,' Jeff said in a 2020 congressional hearing. 'When they tried to kick her out of school, my grandfather went to bat for her. After some negotiation, the principal said, "OK, she can stay and finish high school, but she can't do any extracurricular activities, and she can't have a locker". 'My grandfather took the deal, and my mother finished high school, though she wasn't allowed to walk across the stage with her classmates to get her diploma.' As a young, single mom, she started taking night classes while also working at a bank during the day. 'Determined to keep up with her education, she enrolled in night school, picking classes led by professors who would let her bring an infant to class,' Jeff said. 'She would show up with two duffel bags—one full of textbooks, and one packed with diapers, bottles, and anything that would keep me interested and quiet for a few minutes.' Her shift at the bank overlapped with a young Cuban immigrant, Miguel 'Mike' Bezos, where the two met and fell in love. The couple eventually married, and Miguel adopted Jeff. They also had two children together, Christina and Mark. Jacklyn and Miguel went on to invest just under $250,000 into Amazon in 1995 to help their son with his new company. 'They weren't making a bet on Amazon or the concept of a bookstore on the internet. They were making a bet on their son,' Jeff said. 'I told them that I thought there was a 70 percent chance they would lose their investment, and they did it anyway.' The sum that they lent him was considered not just a huge amount but also a massive risk, as people were still skeptical of the internet. But the gamble paid off, as their son is now worth over $243 billion, while Amazon is a $2 trillion company. Bezos spoke about the original investment his parents gave him at a 2015 event, recalling telling them: 'I want you to know how risky this is. 'Because I want to come home at dinner for Thanksgiving and I don't want you to be mad at me.' It is unclear how much stock they still hold in the company; they donated just under 600,000 shares to the Bezos Family Foundation from 2001 to 2016, according to filings. In 2022, Bezos helped his parents snap up a six-bedroom, seven-bathroom waterfront Miami mansion in 2022 for $34 million. The property was bought by a Delaware company linked to Bezos' parents with the help of a $5 million loan from the Bank of America. Jeff added to his own tribute: 'Her adulthood started a little bit early when she became my mom at the tender age of 17. 'That couldn't have been easy, but she made it all work. She pounced on the job of loving me with ferocity, brought my amazing dad onto the team a few years later, and then added my sister and brother to her list of people to love, guard, and nourish.
The Independent
8 hours ago
- The Independent
Another gold rush could bring open pit mines to South Dakota's Black Hills
A gold rush brought settlers to South Dakota 's Black Hills roughly 150 years ago, chasing the dream of wealth and displacing Native Americans in the process. Now, a new crop of miners driven by gold prices at more than $3,000 an ounce are seeking to return to the treasured landscape, promising an economic boost while raising fears of how modern gold extraction could forever change the region. 'These impacts can be long term and make it so that tourism and outdoor recreation is negatively impacted,' said Lilias Jarding, executive director of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance. 'Our enjoyment of the Black Hills as a peaceful place, a sacred place, is disturbed.' The Black Hills encompass over 1.2 million acres (485,622 hectares), rising up from the Great Plains in southwest South Dakota and extending into Wyoming. The jagged peaks are smaller than those of the Rocky Mountains, but the lush pine-covered hills are sacred to the Lakota Sioux people and serve as a destination for millions of tourists who visit Mount Rushmore and state parks. Dramatic landscape changes come with modern mining One gold mine now operates in the Black Hills, but companies have proposals before state and federal agencies for another one, plus exploratory drilling sites that they hope will lead to full-fledged mines. That has prompted opposition by Native American tribes and environmentalists who argue the projects are close to sacred sites, will contaminate waterways and permanently scar the landscape. Gold extraction has changed dramatically in the decades since prospectors first began panning for gold in the Black Hills. The industry now typically relies on massive trucks and diggers that create deep, multitiered pits and use chemicals like cyanide to extract the gold. The land can never return to its original state. The Homestake mine, once the largest and deepest gold mine in the Western Hemisphere, now sits barren in Lead, South Dakota, and is used for scientific research. Interest in Black Hills gold mining has soared along with the price of the metal. When the Homestake mine closed in 2002, gold sold for about $300 an ounce. Now it goes for about 10 times as much. Joseph Cavatoni, senior market strategist at the World Gold Council, attributes the price spike to global economic uncertainty. 'Gold tends to be a stable asset,' he said. 'That actually performs well in inflationary times, and holds its value in recessionary times. That's why gold as an asset in investment.' President Donald Trump also boosted the industry by issuing an executive order in March to increase American mineral production, calling for expedited permitting and reviews. Colin Paterson, professor emeritus of geological engineering at the South Dakota School of Mines and Technology, notes that Black Hills gold is encased in rock. To extract it, the rock is crushed and then a chemical like cyanide is used to dissolve the mineral and remove it. Mining brings revenue, but renews Black Hills fight Coeur Mining runs the single active mine in the Black Hills, but the company Dakota Gold has plans for an open pit mine to begin operating in 2029. The company is also targeting the area near the old Homestake site to build an underground mine where workers would descend hundreds or even thousands of feet into shafts. Jack Henris, president and chief operating officer of Dakota Gold, estimated the open pit mine would create up to 250 jobs and result in the company paying the state up to $400 million in taxes over the life of the mine. Dakota Gold will conduct an environmental study and surveys of soil and vegetation to ensure safe operation, Henris said. 'Most of the people that work here are from this area and just love to live here,' he said. 'So we're a big part of the Hills and we love them just as much as other folks.' To a great extent, gold mining helped create the modern Black Hills region. The U.S. government signed a treaty in 1868 that recognized the Sioux Nation's right to the Black Hills, but the government seized the land after the discovery of gold and allowed settlers into the region. The U.S. Supreme Court later ruled the Sioux were entitled to compensation, but they have not accepted any and maintain their claim to the land. Tribes have largely opposed mining in the Black Hills. 'There's a central truth about mining in the Black Hills in that it was never the most mineral rich place there ever was,' said Taylor Gunhammer, local organizer with the Indigenous advocacy group NDN Collective and an Oglala Sioux, one of the Lakota people. 'It's not even the actual mineral content of the Black Hills that is so attractive to mining companies. It's the permissive nature of the officials who oversee mining.' Some proposed projects, such as Dakota Gold's mine, are on private land and only subject to state rules, not the U.S. Forest Service regulations required for projects on public acreage. Environmentalists have focused their opposition on the possibility of chemicals leaks. They note that Coeur's Wharf mine has had nearly 200 spills and that the former Homestake mine was closed because it contaminated a nearby creek. Coeur's environmental manager, Jasmine McCauley, said in a statement that each spill was "thoroughly investigated, mitigated, and corrective actions are put in place to prevent reoccurrence.' The company is always improving its processes, she added. Jarding, of the Black Hills Clean Water Alliance, said she remains concerned about the number of projects in the works. 'It's really important that people understand the exponential growth in mining activity that's been happening in the Black Hills over the last five years or so,' Jarding said. "There are currently active mining claims on 271,000 acres in the Black Hills. That's 20% of the whole Black Hills that is potentially going to be subject to mining.'
