Blackfeet Modernize Communications With Membership
December 14, 2009
Browning, MT —December 14th, 2009— The Blackfeet Tribal Business Council today launched a new feature on the www.blackfeetnation.com website for Tribal members to register their email address and other contact information. This will enable the Tribe to include all its 16,516 enrolled members - 8,000 of which live off-reservation in all 50 states - in the latest news and information from home.
This is the first step in a roll-out scheduled for early 2010: a new Tribal website called the “Blackfeet Community” which will include a Facebook-type social networking site, forums / discussion groups, directories so Tribal members can quickly locate and contact other Tribal members, blogs, free classifieds, job center, business opportunity center, Browning and area webcams, and many other features. The website will be accessible only to members of the Blackfeet community: enrolled members, descendants, reservation residents, and those with close ties to the Tribe.
“We are perhaps the oldest living culture in America, and the reason we have survived as a tribe for 10,000 years is because we have always been an indivisible society and community,” said Paul McEvers, Tribal Councilman and Chairman of Chief Mountain Technologies, the Tribe’s federal contracting arm. “Today, with many of us living off the reservation, we must find ways to use technology to keep us together, if not in body, at least in mind, heart, and spirit. We are using the latest technology to ensure that any Blackfeet, anywhere, can come home every time they log on to the new website.”
“Our people are our greatest asset.” added Henry Butterfly, Tribal Councilman. “We have a bright and prosperous future ahead of us and will get there without relying on the outside world if all us Blackfeet stick together and work together. When we lose touch with members, it holds us back and slows us down, so I am happy to see us finding new ways to keep connected in ways we never could have dreamed of just a few years ago.”
About the Blackfeet. With 16,516 enrolled members, we are the largest Indian tribe in Montana and one of the largest tribes in the United States. Our rugged, picturesque 1.5 million acre (3,000 square mile) reservation in Montana has a population of about 10,000, including 8,500 enrolled Blackfeet and several hundred Blackfeet descendents. The other 8,000 Tribal members are scattered all over the world. Our largest town and seat of government is Browning (population 3,500, including surrounding areas). Other towns include Heart Butte, Blackfoot, Starr School, Babb, Saint Mary, Kiowa, and East Glacier. Visit our website at www.blackfeetnation.com
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