Special Recognition Award goes to Thunder Valley

It has been our intention since we started the Fuller Challenge Program to increase the number of awards we are able to confer each year. Last year, in partnership with Interface, we conferred a special recognition prize to the Waterbank Schools project in Laikipia, Kenya.

BFI is delighted to share that in partnership with The Surdna Foundation, The Northwest Area Foundation and others TBA, we are able to present a special recognition award of $40,000 to the Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation from Pine Ridge, South Dakota in this Fuller Challenge cycle. Among many outstanding qualities, this is the first project we have received from the Native American community and it has deeply inspired us.

Below is a brief selection from the Challenge application:

Several years ago, a group of young men, bound by family ties and the love of their cultural traditions, assembled at a common ceremonial gathering. They related experiences of indescribable hopelessness, and were struck by how, in some ways, they were being assimilated into a system of dependence.

Faithful, defiant, with almost no organizational experience, the boys were able to fund, and build, a “Community House”, which would serve as the focal point for the conversations and dreams that would conceive TVCDC. The young men were determined to take responsibility for their futures, while drawing upon their cultural legacy for every planning decision.

Their project, now underway, epitomizes the transformative power of individual initiative, of emergence thru emergency, and the catalytic power of comprehensive anticipatory design. We started raising the funding only a few weeks before the November conferring ceremony and were able to reach our goal of a $40,000 special recognition award.