The generosity of Marshall Acee, 56, his wife, DeeDee, and a group of teenagers goes a very long way – about 2,000 miles from their Charlotte, N.C. home to the Native American Cheyenne River Reservation in South Dakota.
Each summer, the team hits the road for the three-and-a-half day journey to the community, hoping to improve the material and spiritual lives of the native Lakota Sioux Indian children.
But Marshall Acee, a modest man who heads the agency equity trading desk at Wachovia Securities in Charlotte, does not seek much credit for the unusual mission.
"It's an experience," he said, "that our youngsters will remember for the rest of their lives."
Harsh World
The reservation, covering 1,400,000 inspiring acres, is situated in north-central South Dakota far from a major concrete jungle. The winters are harsh, with temperatures dipping to 40 below zero and snow drifts that top ten feet high. A majority of the roughly 5,000 Lakota Sioux Indians on the reservation live below the official poverty line and have an average per capita income of $4,077 (less than a third of the U.S. average).
The goodwill mission is sponsored by Acee's parish, St. Martin's Episcopal Church in Charlotte. But the inspiration came in 1986 from a young attorney, Jay Silver, and his wife, who were advisors to the church's youth group.
The Silvers felt it was important that the young people discover other cultures and find out that not everyone is as fortunate as they are.
The couple was affiliated with a nationwide Episcopalian church organization called "Paths Crossing." The church group was interested in a meaningful relationship with Native Americans. It helped that the organization included a group of Native Americans who wanted closer links with the Episcopalian churches. Those links were forged earlier with forebears of the Native Americans.
Through "Paths Crossing," Silver established a relationship between St. Martin's and a little church at Red Shirt Table, on another reservation, Pine Ridge in South Dakota.
In 1990, Acee's daughter, Dorothy, then 16-years-old, spent several weeks working with Sioux Indian children on Pine Ridge. "She came back a changed person," Acee recalled. "It moved her so much she decided that she wanted to become an attorney and help underprivileged people, particularly children."
Inspiring Experience
Today, Dorothy, 26, is in her third year of law school at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Acee was so touched by his daughter's experience that he resolved to visit Pine Ridge. He wanted to know what he and his church could do for the Sioux Indian community there.
It turned out that Craig Anderson, then Episcopalian Bishop of South Dakota, asked Acee and his parish if they would establish ties with White Horse, a town on the Cheyenne River Reservation. Acee jumped at the opportunity to improve the lives of the Sioux Indians.
Since 1992, Acee, his wife, DeeDee, and a group of adults and youngsters from St. Martin's church have traveled from North Carolina to the reservation in South Dakota. The three-and-a-half day caravan journey usually consists of two 15-passenger vans loaded with essential supplies for the Sioux Indians. One van pulls a huge U-haul trailer stacked with extra supplies, including building material and hundreds of pounds of food.
On their first trip, Acee and his industrious team constructed and transported two prefabricated outhouses for the Cheyenne River Episcopalian church. "There was no running water at this church," Acee recalled.
The church group usually spends about a week on the reservation. "We literally sleep on the prairie out there," Acee said. "We set up our tents about sixty or seventy yards from the church."
The main task on each trip, Acee said, is holding a morning bible school for the Sioux children. The teens from St. Martin's are the religious instructors.
"The [Sioux] children are like sponges. They absorb absolutely everything you tell them," Acee observed. "They crave love and attention. It's an extremely moving experience for our kids."
After a week on the reservation teaching, as well as renovating the church building (originally built over 40 years ago), the youngsters from North Carolina get a sightseeing tour of South Dakota. They visit Mount Rushmore and other favorite tourist spots.
No Steady Work
With little industry in the area, it is difficult for residents of the Cheyenne River reservation to find steady employment. The alternative is to pack up and leave for distant, metropolitan areas. "But the Sioux do not want to leave," Acee explained, "they don't want to leave their culture behind."
Alma Hutchinson, a Sioux Indian friend of Acee's, once told him that the Sioux are misunderstood by outsiders. That's because they are so different from all other cultures.
Acee said the Sioux strongly wish to preserve their heritage. "The Indian culture has no written history, it's an oral history and it's passed from generation to generation," he said. "One of the really sad things is that the old folks are dying and the children do not have as much of that history [passed on]. There are very few left who speak their native languages."
The Acee's commitment to the Lakota Sioux does not end when they pack up and leave the Cheyenne River Reservation for their trip home to Charlotte. They regularly stay in contact through letters and phone calls. And on their last trip this past June, Marshall and DeeDee became godparents to three infant Sioux children.
"It's so important that you establish a continuing relationship with these people," Marshall Acee said. "They are extremely shy. They have good reasons to doubt our intentions because they have been treated unfairly so many times."
"It takes years to develop the kind of relationship that we have with them right now," he added.
Like the long-term investor, Marshall and DeeDee Acee deeply appreciate the tremendous value of planning for the distant future. Their annual returns cannot be quantified. They are making a difference, priceless and remarkable, in the lives of young people, both Sioux and non-Indian.
That will undoubtedly last for a lifetime.
For further information about participating in the mission trip to South Dakota, contact DeeDee Acee, 201 Highland Forest Drive, Charlotte, N.C. 28270.
