Methow Conservancy "Care for the Land" scholarship for graduating seniors
This opportunity is for graduating high school seniors in the Methow Valley and Okanogan regions. One $500 scholarship will be awarded to a student who is an Indigenous/Native American/Alaska Native graduating from high school in Brewster, Lake Roosevelt, Mansfield, the Methow Valley, Okanogan, Omak, Oroville, Pateros, or Tonasket. Students must be admitted to a 2-year or 4-year college or university or a trade/technical school in order to be eligible.
Ineligible: Students whose parents are board, staff, or committee members of the Methow Conservancy.
Deadline: May 15, 2024
Questions? Email Ashley@MethowConservancy.org or call 509.996.5033
Email your completed application: Ashley Lodato, Associate Director. Ashley@MethowConservancy.org
You can also mail your application to: Methow Conservancy, PO Box 71, Winthrop, WA 98862 but it must arrive by May 15, 2024.
Read about our 2023 "Care for the Land" scholarship winners HERE.
Since Time Immemorial
13,000 years ago the last of the Missoula floods swept across Eastern Washington and down the Columbia River Gorge. Glaciologists estimate that the glaciers in the Methow Valley were up to a mile deep. The First People of the Methow Valley have stories about the great flood and its impacts.
For hundreds of generations, the Methow Valley has been the home of the mətx̌ʷu/Methow People. When the first white settlers arrived in the Methow Valley in the late 1800s, most of the mətx̌ʷu/Methow People were forcibly relocated from the Moses-Columbia Reservation, formed in 1879. In 1884, the Moses-Columbia Reservation was dissolved and most of the Methow People were moved to the area east and south of present-day Omak, becoming one of the twelve tribes of the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation.
Others in this diaspora refused to enter the reservations and simply stayed or dispersed in the region. Even today, many Methow Tribal families maintain a consistent presence in this valley. We are grateful for the mətx̌ʷu/Methow People’s careful stewarding of this land and hope to learn from their example.
Learn more about the Confederated Tribes of the Colville Reservation and the mətx̌ʷu/Methow People here.