Urban Indian Health Institute would like to extend a warm congratulations to our six 2026 Sweetgrass Grant awardees!
The grant program gives out awards of up to $10,000 to urban Native-serving organizations that produce public health programming on chronic disease. That programming can involve Indigenous approaches to education, prevention, management, survivorship, or a combination of these practices.
This year’s grantees are:
- Burning Cedar Sovereign Wellness (Tulsa, OK) continues its Storykeepers Lodge: Well Wisdom documentary project. This will include five more audio/video recorded interviews and a panel discussion with Elders about traditional practices and approaches to health, interview editing and archiving, and a theater screening. The organization’s objective is to preserve and share traditional wellness knowledge from urban Native Elders to promote culturally grounded chronic disease prevention and management.
- Minneapolis American Indian Center (Minneapolis, MN) plans to create a weekly women’s-only night at the Native FAN Fitness Center, hold various physical activities such as pickleball, and host speakers and screenings during women’s nights. The organization’s objective is to increase women’s involvement in physical activity and reduce risks for cardiovascular disease/stroke and diabetes.
- Minnesota Indian Women’s Resource Center (Minneapolis, MN) plans to host monthly wellness circles facilitated by Indigenous cultural practitioners. The wellness circles will include talking circles, traditional wellness teachings, culturally relevant nutrition education, accessible movement, and teachings on traditional versus commercial tobacco use. The organization’s goal is to use community-based wellness circles to increase cultural connection, support healthier coping strategies and increase knowledge about nutrition and movement.
- Sacred Circle Healthcare (Salt Lake City, UT) will implement the Urban Indigenous Food Garden Project by expanding its existing Traditional Medicine garden to include the cultivation and consumption of Indigenous foods from Indigenous seeds. The project will also promote intergenerational learning, community engagement, and healthy food practices.
- Sweetgrass Advocacy (Colorado Springs, CO) will use this funding to improve physical, emotional, cultural and community wellbeing with kayaking, horses, hiking, traditional plant education, traditional tobacco use, hunting certification, and food preservation. Through these activities they anticipate better knowledge of Indigenous foods and traditional physical activities and reduced commercial tobacco use during ceremony.
- Urban Native Education Alliance (Seattle, WA) will use their funding to improve wellbeing and reduce diabetes risk factors among American Indian/ Alaska Native people through physical activities for youth, mentorship, and nutritional and cultural foods workshops.
UIHI and the Centers for Disease Control & Prevention partnered to fund these grants. Thank you to all the organizations whose innovative programs are pushing the limits to bring positive changes for Native health.