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PROPANE FUEL FUND
Since about October 2002, I have been raising funds to buy Propane Fuel for as many families on the Pine Ridge Reservation as I can.
Propane
Fuel is the main form of fuel that many families use for heating and
cooking, as there is no mains gas and electricity is a very expensive
form of heating. Many families do not even have mains electricity and
live in terrible poverty!
Propane
is needed all year round, especially so in the winter months. The
winters in South Dakota can start to set in from the end on Sept
onwards, even having snow as early as October! Temperatures can
plummet to as low as minus 20-40 degrees below freezing, so Propane
fuel really is the difference between life and death!
Many families do not even
have a Propane tank, trying to survive using a small indoor heater,
which is absolutely no use at all in the severe winters they
experience out there.
To
buy a Propane tank costs around £350 for a 250 gallon one, and
around £550 for a 500 gallon one.
To fill the tanks cost from around £150 - £300 depending on the size of tank.
A tank fill will last from approx 1-3 months depending on how cold it is, so tanks may have to be filled from 2-4 times during a winter spell, again depending on temperatures. More if the weather is extremely severe.
If
families get cut off by extreme weather conditions and have no means
of heating, they simply freeze to death!! Elders will sleep outside
in the battered old cars they may own, simply to allow the women and
children to be indoors in their trailers, of which many of vastly
overcrowded. Again if the temperature plummets, these poor Elders die.
I was even told of one tragic Elderly couple during one winter, that tried to survive by living in a cave in the Black Hills, as they had no where to go. Needless to say, they did not survive!!
It is truly amazing that this can still be happening to these wonderful Lakota people in this day and age! All the wealth in this world and yet they are still suffering so badly.
I deal directly with a wonderful propane company, based just over the border in Nebraska, called Westco. They have been so helpful and efficient, anything I have asked them to do, they have done. Many companies will not set foot on the reservation, because of prejudice and hatred, but Westco have been truly caring and obliging.
For further information email:
Thank you for your help.
Brenda Aplin.
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